Toll from bombing climbs in Iran

Officials report 91 killed, more than 200 injured in attack

TEHRAN, Iran — The death toll from a suicide bombing in Iran claimed by the Islamic State group has risen to at least 91, state TV reported Saturday.

The blasts also injured more than 200, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported, citing Iranian officials.

The TV quoted Babak Yektaparast, a spokesman for the country’s emergency services, as saying an 8-year boy and a 67-year-old man who were wounded in the attack have now died.

Yektaparast added that there are 102 people still being treated in hospitals, of whom 11 are in critical condition.

In Wednesday’s attack, one suicide bomber detonated his explosives, then another attacked 20 minutes later as emergency workers and other people tried to help the wounded.

The attack took place in Kerman, about 510 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran. It targeted a commemoration for Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, killed in 2020 by a U.S. drone strike as he led its expeditionary Quds Force.

Iranian authorities have arrested 11 people linked to Wednesday’s bomb blasts in the central Iranian city of Kerman that killed dozens of people, the country’s Intelligence Ministry said in a statement published in state media.

Two suspects who were “supporting and supplying” the two alleged suicide bombers were arrested Thursday, the statement said. Nine others who Iranian officials believe are part of a network assisting the bombers were rounded up in six provinces, according to the ministry. Iranian officials said the two bombers had worked for Daesh, the Arabic acronym referring to Islamic State.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blasts in a message posted to social media on Thursday.

The operation to capture individuals linked to the bombing “will definitely continue until the arrest of the last person who was involved in supporting the criminals in any way and to any extent,” the ministry said.

Iranian authorities said one of the two suicide bombers was a Tajik citizen while the other’s nationality “has not been definitively established yet.” Officials said they found two explosive vests, two remote control devices and detonators, and several thousand bullets and wiring for the vests, among other items at the two bombers’ residence.

The Washington Post could not immediately verify the Intelligence Ministry’s account.

(AP/Vahid Salemi) People pray over the flag-draped coffins of victims of Wednesday’s bomb explosion during their funeral ceremony in the city of Kerman about 510 miles southeast of the capital Tehran, Iran, on Friday.