According to official media, two bombs detonated simultaneously near a gathering honoring the late commander Qasem Soleimani on the anniversary of his death, killing at least 103 people in Iran on Wednesday.
The explosions, which state television referred to as a “terrorist attack,” occurred a day after Iran-ally and leader of Hamas, Saleh al-Aruri, was killed in a drone attack on a southern Beirut suburb that Lebanese officials blamed on Israel, adding to the already high level of tension in the Middle East.
As supporters gathered to commemorate the fourth anniversary of Soleimani’s death in a US drone strike just outside Baghdad airport, explosions remained close to the Saheb al-Zaman Mosque in Kerman, his hometown in the south, where he is buried.
Rahman Jalali, the deputy governor of Kerman, described the blasts as a “terrorist attack.”
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
“The number of people killed rose to 103 following the death of people injured during the terrorist explosions,” said official IRNA news agency, which earlier reported 73 deaths.
Another 141 people were wounded in the bombings, IRNA said, adding that some were in “critical condition”.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency, quoting informed sources, said “two bags carrying bombs went off” at the site.
“The perpetrators… of this incident apparently detonated the bombs by remote control,” Tasnim added.
The ISNA news agency quoted Kerman mayor Saeed Tabrizi as saying the bombs exploded 10 minutes apart.
“We were walking towards the cemetery when a car suddenly stopped behind us and a waste bin containing a bomb exploded,” an eyewitness was quoted by ISNA as saying.
“We only heard the sound of the explosion and saw people falling. There was a bomb in the trash can,” the witness added.
Online footage showed crowds scrambling to flee as security personnel cordoned off the area.
Deadly adversary
Images on state television showed several ambulances and rescue personnel in the area.
According to Iran’s Red Crescent, three paramedics who had been called to the scene after the initial explosion were among the 73 people who perished.
Overseeing military activities throughout the Middle East, Soleimani was the chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ international operations branch, the Quds Force.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, referred to Soleimani as a “living martyr” while he was still alive. Soleimani was hailed as a hero for his part in taking down the Islamic State terrorist group in both Iraq and Syria.
Many Iranians believed that his military and strategic abilities had prevented the multiethnic implosion of neighboring nations like Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq.
Soleimani was a key player in determining Iran’s political and military strategy in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. For a long time, the US and its allies viewed him as a lethal enemy.
Millions of people came together to grieve in a display of national solidarity in the days following his death in 2020 and before his funeral in Kerman.
Soleimani was rated as having an 83 percent approval rating in Iran, higher than that of then-president Hassan Rouhani and then-foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, according to a 2018 poll conducted by IranPoll and the University of Maryland.