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03-01-2024
TEHRAN: State media in Iran says the death toll from twin blasts near the grave of slain Revolutionary Guards general Qasem Soleimani has risen to 103 people, after some who were injured died of their wounds.
The official IRNA news agency also says that 141 people were wounded in the blast, with some in critical condition.
The pair of bombs that detonated near the grave of slain Iranian general Qasem Soleimani were set off by remote control, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reports, quoting informed sources.
“Two bags carrying bombs went off” at the site, says the news outlet, which is considered close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose Quds Force Soleimani headed before his 2020 assassination.
At least 170 people were wounded in twin bombings alongside at least 73 deaths, state media says.
The state-run ISNA news agency quotes Kerman mayor Saeed Tabrizi as saying the bombs exploded 10 minutes apart.
Online footage shows crowds scrambling to flee as security personnel cordoned off the area.
Authorities say some people were injured while fleeing afterward. Footage suggested that the second blast occurred some 15 minutes after the first. A delayed second explosion is often used by terrorists to target emergency personnel responding to the scene and inflict more casualties.
People could be heard screaming in state TV footage.
Kerman’s deputy governor, Rahman Jalali, calls the attack “terroristic,” without elaborating. Iran has multiple foes who could be behind the assault, including exile groups, militant organizations and state actors.
Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s regional military activities and is hailed as a national icon among supporters of Iran’s theocracy. He also helped secure Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government after the 2011 Arab Spring protests against him turned into a civil, and later a regional, war that still rages today.
The Deputy Governor of Kerman province says that the two blasts near the grave of Islamic Republican Guard Corps general Soleimani were acts of terrorism, according to the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency.
Sources on the ground are telling local media that the explosions came from suicide bombers in two separate locations, but that has not been confirmed by an official statement.
Initial reports indicated that at least 73 were killed in the blasts and the stampede that followed, but those figures are expected to rise. A Tasnim reporter says that there is a “strong chance” that more than 80 were killed. (Int’l News Desk)
