Bombing at Iranian general’s tomb kills 95
Country’s supreme leader threatens ‘harsh response’ after deadly blasts at Qassem Soleimani’s grave
NINETY-FIVE people were killed yesterday when two bombs detonated by remote control tore through a crowd at the grave of Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s global terrorist operations.
Iranian officials appeared split over whether to blame Israel for the country’s deadliest bombing since the 1979 revolution, which would probably demand a military response from the Islamic Republic.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attributed the blasts to the “evil and criminal enemies of the Iranian nation” but stopped short of naming Israel.
Iran’s foreign ministry refrained from blaming its long-standing enemy. However, two senior aides, Mohammad Mokhber, the vice-president, who is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Esmail Ghaani, the leader of its elite Quds Force, named Israel and the United States as perpetrators.
John Kirby, the US national security spokesman, said: “We have no indication that Israel was in any way involved in this.”
He added: “We certainly had no indications that there would be some sort of violence surrounding the anniversary of his death.
The bombings came on the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC’S external wing in a US drone strike. Thousands of mourners were visiting his tomb in Kerman, about 510 miles southeast of Tehran, the capital.
Tasnim, a news agency with ties to the Revolutionary Guards, said that a pair of bombs placed in bags along the route of the cemetery had exploded as a memorial procession passed by. Footage on social media showed a cloud of smoke billowing from a roadside as mourners fled screaming. In another clip, dead and bloodied bodies could be seen littered across the pavement.
Iran declared a national day of mourning for today and emergency services issued calls for blood donations because of supply shortages given the unusually high number of casualties.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the incident Iranian officials described as a “terrorist attack”.
The bombings followed less than 24 hours after Israel assassinated Saleh al-arouri, the deputy leader of Hamas’s political wing, in a Beirut drone strike.
Iranian officials and politicians blamed Israel for the attack in Kerman, a usually peaceful region.
Israel has assassinated Iranian officials within the country before, particularly linked to its nuclear programme, but never carried out a mass casualty attack. Sunni and Baloch militants have killed hundreds with suicide bombings.
“The pure blood of innocent people was spilled in Kerman by the agents of the Zionist entity and its supporters,” said Mr Mokhber.
“The enemy is even scared of those who pay homage to my father,” said Soleimani’s son, Mohammmad Reza.
Mujtaba Zolnoori, the deputy speaker of Iran’s parliament, said: “In view of the explosions not being carried out by suicide bombers, we can say that they have been the work of the Israelis.
“This means they will receive a response on a global scale.”
Ayatollah Khamenei threatened a “harsh response” to the events in southern Iran. “The evil and criminal enemies of the Iranian nation once again created a disaster and martyred a large number of dear people in Kerman,” he said. “This disaster will have a harsh response, God willing.”
Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s president, promised the “pursuit and identification of the planners and perpetrators”, in a further sign the country was not ready to blame a specific group or country for the attack.
Raz Zimmt, an Iran analyst at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies, said that the two most likely suspects for the bombing are Isis’s Afghan operation, known as Isis-khorasan, or Pakistani separatists.
‘The evil enemies of the Iranian nation once again created a disaster and martyred a large number of dear people in Kerman’