ISIS claims responsibility for double blast at Iranian memorial that left 84 dead and hundreds injured
4 January 2024, 18:32 | Updated: 4 January 2024, 18:36
ISIS has claimed responsibility for two explosions at a ceremony in Iran that saw nearly 100 killed and hundreds injured.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Crowds had gathered to pay their respects to Soleimani, the slain head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, when two blasts struck the southeastern city of Kerman.
The theocratic dictatorship treats him as a martyr after the US killed him in a drone strike in Iraq in 2020 under then-president Donald Trump.
Washington viewed him as a major supporter of terrorism and instability in the Middle East.
Footage taken at the scene of the blasts on Wednesday showed a bloodbath, with victims strewn across the floor close to the Saheb al-Zaman Mosque where the general is buried.
The explosions are believed to have killed at least 84 and left hundreds of others wounded in what has been described as Iran’s worst mass-casualty attack in decades.
An earlier death toll of 103 was twice revised lower but the death toll could still rise due to those critically injured.
ISIS said that the attack was carried out by two of its members who detonated their explosive vests in the middle of a crowd.
It comes after a source told the state news agency IRNA that the first explosion "was the result of a suicide bomber's action".
Authorities in Kerman described the blast as a “terrorist attack” as Tehran vowed to punish those responsible for the deadliest militant attack to target Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“A very strong retaliation will be meted out to them by the hands of the soldiers of Soleimani,' Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber told local media.
The explosions struck minutes apart on Wednesday, shaking the city of Kerman, about 510 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran.
The second blast sprayed shrapnel into a screaming crowd fleeing the first explosion.
It followed the killing of Hamas's deputy political leader Saleh al-Arouri, who was assassinated in Beirut on Tuesday.
Two Hamas militant commanders were killed alongside four other members in the drone strike.
