Deadly blasts at assassinated general’s grave
Nearly 100 people were killed at an event honoring former Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Wednesday in what local authorities and a senior White House official are calling a “terrorist” attack.
Thousands of Iranians had gathered at Soleimani’s gravesite in the city of Kerman to mark the fourth anniversary of his death, carrying photos of the former head of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, when authorities say two bombs were detonated.
The first explosion occurred 765 yards from Soleimani’s grave, while the second was about a half a mile away, Iranian national media reported.
Graphic video shared online showed crowds fleeing as emergency crews responded, with bodies on the ground.
The footage suggested the second blast occurred some 15 minutes after the first — a tactic often used by terrorist groups to target emergency responders and increase the death toll.
The two bombs were reportedly placed in suitcases and detonated remotely.
“The blasts were caused by terrorist attacks,” one official said. “Several gas canisters exploded on the road leading to the cemetery.”
A senior White House official said that “just based on the m.o., it does look like a terrorist attack. [It’s] a type of thing we’ve seen ISIS do in the past.”
The death toll from the explosions rose quickly Wednesday morning, with the head of Kerman’s emergency services telling state-run media it was at 103 by 10 a.m. EST.
But later in the day, that number was revised to 95 when officials realized there were repeat names on a list of victims, Iranian Health Minister Bahram Einollahi told state TV.
However, causalities could rise again as many of the at least 211 wounded are in critical condition.
Iran’s head of judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, said the perpetrators will be found and punished.
“Responsible intelligence, security and law-enforcement agencies are obligated to promptly pursue all the evidence and perpetrators and hand them over to the judiciary,” he said in a statement, according to Al-Jazeera.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
But Iran has multiple enemies that could be behind it, including exile groups, militant organizations and state actors.
Support to Hamas
The nation has provided financial support to Hamas, as well as Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, all of which are currently fighting Israel.
Israel in the past has been accused of carrying out drone strikes on Iranian military facilities, and Sunni terrorist groups, like ISIS, have carried out bombings on civilian targets in the majority Shia nation.
Soleimani was regarded as a national hero among supporters of Iran’s theocracy, but was also considered a threat to American interests after he helped armed terrorists with roadside bombs that killed and maimed US troops.
He helped secure Syrian President Bashar Assad’s victory after the 2011 Arab Spring protests against Assad turned into a civil war.
In 2020, the US under Donald Trump killed the general in a drone strike.
Afterward, Trump Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Soleimani “was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.
“This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” Esper added.
But Soleimani’s death has sparked backlash and widespread protests against the US ever since.
At his funeral in 2020, a stampede broke out and at least 56 people were killed and more than 200 injured.
A group of rabbis was told to remove their “I’m a Jew and I’m proud” signs at the Utah Jazz game Monday after the placards allegedly caused a “distraction” to Dallas Mavericks player Kyrie Irving.
Rabbi Avremi Zippel, a lifelong Jazz fan, said he got tickets for himself, his brother, his father and a friend to sit courtside at the Delta Center to watch the NBA hoops team play the Mavericks and to protest Irving, who as a Brooklyn Net in 2022 was suspended for tweeting a link to an antisemitic movie and for his initial failure to disavow it.
The rabbi said that “with a fine tooth comb [he] researched the Jazz’s code of conduct and the NBA’s code of conduct” to determine whether he could bring such signs to the game — and thought it would be allowed, he told the Salt Lake Tribune.
But during the first quarter, Ir- ving took notice of the rabbis sitting with their signs, Zippel said. The rabbi said Irving soon began to get upset and told him there is “no need to bring that to a game.”
Zippel claimed the Mavericks guard spoke to security staff, and Jazz officials came over to check the rabbis’ tickets and told them to put the signs away.
“I want to be very clear: At no point did we boo Kyrie,” Zippel added to the Deseret News.
In a statement, the Utah Jazz said the signs were in breach of its audience code of conduct — which states games must be played “without distraction or disturbance... “The issue was the dis-interaction ruptive caused by usage of the signs, not the content of the signs,” the team said. The Post has reached out to the Mavericks requesting comment.