Iran has often been a main target for ISIS. The double explosion that occurred on Wednesday during commemorations of the death of General Qassem Soleimani in Kerman, which killed at least 90 people, according to a figure revised upwards on Friday, is no exception. If Iranian officials had pointed the finger at the United States and Israel amid high tensions fueled by the war between Israel and Hamas, the Islamic State (IS) ultimately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Two suicide bombers “activated their explosive belt” amid “a large gathering of renegades, near the grave of their leader,” the group wrote in its lawsuit. The date and locations were not chosen at random, and according to Adel Bakawan, Middle East specialist and director of the French Research Center for Iraq, Daesh was able to regain an international visibility that had been eclipsed by the Israeli conflict. – Palestinians.
General Soleimani, a frontline enemy
If the Islamic State is characterized by anything other than sowing terror and death, that is the meaning of the symbol. This “new generation has a perfect command of new technologies and social networks and knows very well the meaning of symbols,” explains Adel Bakawan to 20 Minutes. So if no one could predict an attack on Wednesday, that's not surprising.
General Soleimani, killed in an American attack on January 3, 2020, was in fact “an actor in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,” recalls Carole André-Dessornes, a geopolitologist and balance of power specialist Middle East, associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), interviewed by 20 Minutes.
Good specialist knowledge
The date of commemoration of his death and the location of his grave thus promised, in addition to the strong symbol, a large crowd that would make it possible to claim as many victims as possible. It was then a good knowledge of Iranian society and culture that made it possible to attack Iranian civilians in an effective and terrible way on Wednesday, January 3rd. If there are no real territorial branches of Daesh in the region, there would definitely be an Iranian core made up mostly of Iranian Kurds, claims Adel Bakawan.
It is precisely this core “that knew that a large gathering would be organized for the occasion, that knew shortcomings and gaps in security procedures and suspected that the Islamic Republic of Iran was currently too preoccupied with events in the Middle East.” “, explains the region’s specialist. “Daesh wanted to inflict as many victims as possible on the grave of the Iranian national hero to make it a bigger symbol,” he added.
Without forgetting that the Shiites, the majority Muslims in Iran, are among the “minorities to be destroyed” for the Islamic State, they are viewed as bad Muslims or even as “frauds,” explains Carole André-Dessornes. The jihadist group “shows that Iran remains a target,” she continues.
Regain visibility
Furthermore, this attack allowed the jihadist group to regain visibility in the Western media scene. Obliterated for several years by other dramatic news such as the war in Ukraine, but especially the conflict between Hamas and Israel, it is a way to “come back with renewed vigor,” says Adel Bakawan. “They were looking for a way to make themselves visible, especially in the West, and the goal was successful,” he adds. A nuanced analysis, however, by Carole André-Dessornes.
If Daesh is indeed an opportunistic group capable of exploiting regional chaos, “it has never really stopped its actions and is particularly active in Afghanistan, an area that is perhaps less interesting to Western media at the moment,” she said Regrettably. And to recall that “the Islamic State has never emphasized the Palestinian cause in its communications.”