After Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the deadly terrorist attack in Iran on Wednesday, Major General Hossein Salami of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said that “the [ISIS] terrorists are only acting as agents for America and Israel.”
At the funeral for the victims of twin Islamic State bombings two days earlier, Salami claimed that the “hated Zionist regime is on the verge of destruction and every day 20 Zionists are killed by the Palestinians,” numbers that do not align with actual casualty numbers for Israel and the IDF.
Nearly 100 people were killed at a memorial in the city of Kerman on Wednesday for top commander Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq in 2020 by a US drone.
Islamic State said on Thursday that two of its members had detonated explosive belts in the crowd that had gathered at the cemetery in the southeastern city.
Interior minister Ahmad Vahidi told state TV a number of suspects had been arrested.
“Our country’s capable intelligence agencies have found very good clues regarding elements involved in the terrorist explosions in Kerman and a section of those who had a role in this incident have been arrested,” he said without elaborating.
Mourners shout for “revenge, revenge”
State TV showed a dense crowd at the Imam Ali religious center in Kerman where families wept over rows of coffins wrapped in the Iranian flag.
Mourners shouted “revenge, revenge,” “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
Tehran often accuses Israel and the United States of backing anti-Iran militant groups that have carried out attacks in the past.
Wednesday’s blasts, the bloodiest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, came as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza nears the three-month mark.
In 2022, Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a Shi’ite shrine in Iran that killed 15 people, while earlier attacks claimed by Islamic State include twin bombings in 2017 that targeted Iran’s parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
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