Iran’s enemies remind it of its fragilities. At least 91 people were killed in the attack perpetrated on Wednesday January 3 in the south of the country. The attack occurred during a memorial ceremony in Kerman near the tomb of General Qassem Soleimani, targeted in January 2020 by an American strike in Iraq. This attack is the deadliest since 1978, shortly before the advent of the Islamic Republic, when an arson attack in a cinema in Abadan left more than 470 dead.
Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying two Daesh militants, Omar al-Mowahid and Sayefulla al-Mujahid, had “activated their explosive belt” amid “a large gathering of apostates, near from the grave of their leader”. A few minutes before the claim, the IS spokesperson had affirmed that it was carried out “in support of Muslims wherever they are, particularly in Palestine”.
The IS branch most likely to strike Iran is that of Khorasan province, an active affiliate of the caliphate in Central Asia. It was born in Afghanistan in 2015 and focuses on attacks against the Shiite community. Note that the Afghan Hazara minority has been in their sights many times. The United Nations estimates that its workforce is between 4,000 and 6,000 people.
Why did ISIS target Iran? The differences between the Islamic State and Tehran are not new. They can be explained by the divide between two currents of Islam: Sunnism, the majority in the world, and Shiism, more important in Iran. Shiites represent 10 to 15% of the Muslim world. While ISIS is a Sunni organization, it does not consider Iranians to be true Muslims because they are Shiites. This divide has its origins in the death of the Prophet: the Shiites follow Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib, while the Sunnis choose Abu Bakr, companions of the Prophet, as the first caliph.
Qassem Soleimani, sworn enemy of IS
Beyond the religious question, differences are also found on the diplomatic scene. Tehran had fought against the Islamic State by supporting the Bashar al-Assad regime and arming Shiite militias in Syria and Iran. And it was General Qassem Soleimani who managed these brigades. Figure of the Islamic Republic and former head of the Quds Force, Iran’s external operations branch, he is celebrated in his country for his role in the defeat of ISIS in neighboring Iraq as well as in Syria.
Qassem Soleimani was also a symbol of nationalism: he was one of the key players in Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East, before being killed in Baghdad in a targeted drone strike, led by the United States during of the US-Iranian crisis of 2019-2020. “Soleimani was considered by the population as a shield against Daesh,” explains Jonathan Piron, historian and political scientist specializing in Iran, in the daily The evening.
Furthermore, this attack occurs in a very tense regional context since October 7 and the start of the conflict between Israel, sworn enemy of the Islamic Republic, and the Islamist movement Hamas. Iran supports and helps arm Hamas, but also Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, who have intensified their attacks on Israel during its war against Hamas. Iran seemed to hold some of the cards in its hands, but the Islamic State came to remind it of its vulnerability.
With this attack, ISIS shows that Israel is not the only adversary of the Islamic Republic capable of reaching it. Iran is indeed confronted with separatist movements in the province of Sistan-Baluchistan, neighboring Pakistan, as well as Arab separatists in Ahvaz, on the border with Iraq, alleged perpetrators of attacks in the country in recent years. last years. Moreover, the blood debt between Iran and ISIS goes back a long way. In 2017, ISIS claimed responsibility for its first attack in Iran, targeting the seat of Parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, killing 17 people. On October 26, 2022, the Islamic State claimed to be responsible for the attack in Shiraz, which left around fifteen dead.
The strategy of blaming Israel
Despite ISIS’s claim, Iranian officials continued to accuse Iran’s main enemies, Israel and the United States, of complicity in the attack. The IS “has disappeared” and “can only act as a mercenary of Zionist and American policy,” General Salami said. Washington deemed any suggestion of US or Israeli involvement “absurd”, with a senior US official speaking on condition of anonymity assuring him that the attack looked “like the sort of thing” done by the EI “in the past”. Israel for its part has not commented.
Yet even after the terrorist group’s declaration, the Tasnim news agency, the media arm of the Revolutionary Guards, went so far as to assert that “Israel ordered ISIS to take responsibility for ‘attack”. The conservative newspaper Jam-é Jamtaken back by International mailaccuses Israel of having thus “crossed the red lines [en] ordering the attack. “Revenge is certain,” it headlines in Hebrew and Persian on the cover of its Friday edition.[Téhéran] received the signal for the start of the war and the fire has now spread to our country. [L’Iran] will not remain passive,” the newspaper continues.
Whatever those responsible really think, blaming Israel and the United States is much more convenient, some analysts and opponents of the government argue in the New York Times, than admit that the Iranian state cannot protect its people from terrorism. Indeed, the attack tarnishes Iran’s image as being capable of deploying its power in the region without facing reprisals.
Proof of the fragility of Iranian power – and following its eagerness to accuse the Americans and Israel – many Iranians on social networks believed that it was the regime in place which had orchestrated the attack in order to unite them against a only enemy: the Hebrew country. This is what Mahnaz Shirali, sociologist and political scientist specializing in Iran, explains to our colleagues at The cross. On social media, Iranians expressed their anger against the government. For their part, the reform media, such as the newspaper Hammihan, criticize the attitude of the security forces, who “ignored possible threats during the ceremony”.