The Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility this Thursday, January 4 for the attack which left 84 dead in Iran the day before, near the tomb of General Qassem Soleimani, former architect of Iranian military operations in the Middle East, including the country commemorated the death.
Via its Telegram channels, the jihadist group indicated that two of its members “activated their explosive belt” in the middle of “a large gathering of apostates, near the grave of their leader Qassem Soleimani yesterday in Kerman, in the south of Iran. The IS included this operation as part of a campaign called “And kill them wherever you find them”, according to the press release.
A few minutes before the claim, IS released an audio recording of its spokesperson saying that this campaign was being carried out “in support of Muslims wherever they are, particularly in Palestine”. The attack, which also left 284 injured, took place near the Saheb al-Zaman mosque which houses the tomb of General Soleimani killed in a January 2020 American drone attack in Iraq.
Qassem Soleimani was a key man in the Islamic Republic and one of the country’s most popular figures. Declared a “living martyr” by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while he was still alive, Soleimani was celebrated for his role in the defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
The United States first accused
Iran observed this Thursday a day of national mourning after this double explosion which occurred in a very tense regional context since the start of the conflict in October between Israel and Hamas, and the day after the elimination of a senior member of the movement Palestinian Islamist in a strike near Beirut, attributed to Israel.
According to the official Iranian agency Irna, citing “an informed source”, the first explosion was caused by a suicide bomber, a man, whose body was torn to pieces. For the second, the investigation continues but it was most probably also a suicide bomber, adds Irna.
In Iran, officials immediately pointed the finger at Israel and the United States for this attack. A political adviser to the Iranian president, Mohammad Jamshidi, accused the “American and Zionist regimes” of being behind the attack. For their part, the United States had highlighted that “this brings together a terrorist attack, the type of thing that the Islamic State has done in the past, and that is what we assume at this time.” a senior official in President Joe Biden’s administration told the press on Wednesday, on condition of anonymity.