An old ghost has returned. The Islamic State claimed responsibility this Thursday for the attacks that yesterday left at least 84 dead in Kerman, southeastern Iran, when an event was being held to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, an influential commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The Islamist organization, also known as ISIS or Daesh, of Sunni confession, has claimed responsibility in a statement released on the social network Telegram. Iran is the main Shiite regional power, which has led to hostilities between Tehran and the Islamic State in the past, most recently an attack in the southern city of Shiraz in 2022 that killed 15 people.
Yesterday’s double attack occurred near the mausoleum of Soleimani, a general assassinated by a United States drone in 2020. The first explosion took place around three in the afternoon, local time, about 700 meters from the mausoleum, near a parking lot, and the second about 20 minutes later, Iranian authorities said. Local media added this Thursday that it was a “suicide attack.” And Islamic State has confirmed it.
The terrorist group has explained that two of its members went towards a large gathering of people and detonated their explosive belts. The Islamic State identified the two suicide bombers as Omar al Mowhid and Saifalá al Mujahid, who committed the attack so that “the polytheists know that the jihadists are behind them and their projects,” according to the statement.
“It looks like a terrorist attack, the kind of thing we’ve seen ISIS do in the past, and as far as we know, I think it’s kind of a current assumption at the moment,” Washington speculated yesterday.
The more than 80 fatalities in Kerman make this attack one of the bloodiest in Iran in decades. The authorities of the Islamic Republic have assured that its authors will be arrested and that those who support them “will fear the wrath of the Iranian nation.”
