The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack that on Wednesday unleashed a massacre around the Saheb al-Zaman mosque in the city of Kerman with a final toll of 84 dead and almost three hundred injured. The assumption of this mass murder, the largest perpetrated in the Islamic Republic, confirms the suspicions that have made their way since this Thursday morning in the investigation media as data on the attack was gathered and the hypothesis of an action was consolidated committed by suicides. Tehran has even reinforced surveillance on the borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan, the theater of Isis operations, since the early hours.
The possibility of a double suicidal action arose in the moments after the massacre. Some witnesses claimed to have seen how two individuals detonated explosive belts in two places hundreds of meters from each other and almost fifteen minutes apart, in the middle of the plaza where a crowd was commemorating the fourth anniversary of the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, buried in the cemetery next to the mosque. However, the authorities finally accepted the version that the devices were hidden in plastic bags and were detonated remotely.
The state agency IRNA has reported that the scattered remains of at least one of the two kamikazes have been found. Daesh itself has provided his identities in his recorded message, as is usual in his suicidal actions. These are Omar al Mowhid and Saifalá al Mujahid, whose death I would like to warn “the polytheists to know that the jihadists are behind him and his projects.” The two activated their bombs in the middle of “a large crowd of apostates, near the tomb of their leader Qasem Soleimani.”
The organization alludes to the Israeli conflict, which it calls a religious war and warns Hamas not to collaborate with the Shiites, in what would be a warning to support Hezbollah. The Islamic State also calls on the “lions of Islam” to persecute “Jews, Christians and their allies in the streets of the United States, Europe and the world” in retaliation for the offensive launched in Gaza. Apart from its objectives of uniting and leading the Muslim world, one of its stated principles is the “liberation of Palestine.” In his statement he advocates attacking civilians and “easy targets” such as churches and synagogues in the West.
The 'modus operandi' of the terrorist organization is almost identical to what it used this past August in Afghanistan when it detonated a high-powered explosive in the middle of the crowd attending a rally of the country's main party in a town in the northwest. 54 civilians died in that attack.
The jihadist group came to control a large part of Syria and Iraq a few years ago, with its oil fields and main cities. Under its rule live at least eight million inhabitants, subject to the most rigorous application of Sharia law. It has thousands of militants and has been responsible for several attacks in the Islamic Republic. The last of them, before the one perpetrated on Wednesday, happened at the end of last year, in October, when an Islamic State commando attacked the mausoleum in the city of Shiraz, a place of worship for the Shiites, and opened fire on those gathered. . He killed fifteen people and injured another forty.
After having said that there were 95 dead and 181 injured, Tehran lowered the death toll this Thursday. “According to the latest statistics, 84 people died,” the head of the country's emergency services, Jafar Miadfar, announced on state television. The attack left “284 injured,” of whom “195 remain hospitalized,” Miadfar added.
The attack – two explosions with an interval of 15 minutes – occurred near the Saheb al Zaman mosque, where the tomb of General Qasem Soleimani, responsible for Iranian military operations in the Middle East, assassinated by the United States on January 3, is located. of 2020 in Iraq. The bombs went off as a crowd commemorated the fourth anniversary of his death. The Minister of the Interior, Ahmad Vahidi, warned however that the death toll could still increase, as some of the injured were in a “critical condition.”
The attack occurred amidst tension in the Middle East and a day after the number two of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Saleh Al Aruri, an ally of Iran, died in an attack in Beirut, which Lebanese authorities attributed to Israel.
Tehran declared a “day of national mourning” this Thursday, after the bloodiest attack in the country since 1978, when a criminal fire caused at least 377 deaths in a cinema in Abadan (southwest), according to AFP files. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, promised a “tough response” and other Iranian leaders accused Israel and the United States. The Jewish State, Iran's arch-enemy, did not comment on the attack and claimed to “be focused on the fighting” in Gaza.
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