Iran observed a day of mourning on Friday for the victims of a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State group. The attack targeted a commemoration event for General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2020. The death toll from the attack has risen to at least 89.
While the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, it unfolded against the backdrop of heightened tensions in the Middle East due to Israel’s conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The attack took place in the usually peaceful city of Kerman, located about 510 miles southeast of Tehran, Iran’s capital.
During the funeral, General Hossein Salami, the top commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, linked the attack to the United States. The gathered crowd responded with chants of “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Salami questioned the ethics of attacking oppressed and defenseless women and children, calling on those responsible to join the fight against real adversaries instead.
Iranian state television also sought to connect the United States to the attack. At one point, it aired comments made by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 when he falsely accused former President Barack Obama of being the “founder” of the extremist group.
Critics have argued that Obama’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq in 2011 allowed the Islamic State, once an affiliate of al-Qaida, to thrive and eventually seize large parts of Iraq and Syria, declaring a self-declared caliphate in 2014. U.S. troops, under both Obama and Trump, later worked alongside allied forces to reclaim that territory.
In the attack that occurred on Wednesday, a suicide bomber detonated himself, followed by another explosion about 20 minutes later as people and emergency responders were assisting the wounded. The target was a commemoration event for General Qassem Soleimani, known for his role in the Iranian response to the Islamic State group in Syria and his efforts to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime. He also had extensive ties to proxy groups across the Middle East, including Hamas. However, the United States, in the midst of heightened tensions over its collapsed nuclear deal with world powers, viewed Soleimani as responsible for orchestrating lethal roadside bombings against American soldiers in Iraq.
The dual bombings resulted in a death toll of at least 89 people, with approximately 280 others wounded, as reported by authorities on Friday.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement issued on Thursday. The statement named the two suicide bombers and described the attack as part of a new campaign associated with Israel’s conflict in the Gaza Strip.
