The Islamic Republic of Iran experienced the deadliest attack in its history on Wednesday, January 3, killing at least 84 people. It came as Tehran commemorated the death of Ghassem Soleimani, the external operations commander of the Revolutionary Guards (the country's ideological army), who was killed by an American drone strike in Baghdad on January 2, 2020. Minutes apart, two bombs exploded in the southern city of Kerman, near the Saheb Al-Zaman mosque where the general is buried, as a large crowd visited his grave.
According to Tasnim, a news agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, the perpetrators of the attack remotely detonated two bags loaded with explosives that had been left at the entrance to the Kerman cemetery. The victims are said to include three officers and six children. This attack, which had not been claimed as of Thursday morning, comes in the context of very high regional tensions since the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, which was responsible for the deaths of 1,200 people and the capture of around 240 hostages in the outbreak the war in Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of more than 22,000 Palestinians.
The day before the double attack in Kerman, on January 2, Saleh Al-Arouri, Hamas' number two political leader, and six other leaders of the Islamist movement in Beirut were killed in a drone strike attributed to Israel. A few days earlier, on December 25, 2023, Iran accused Israel of killing the highest-ranking member of the Revolutionary Guard in Syria, Brigadier General Razi Mousavi, in a rocket attack. The Iranian leadership had promised retaliation. “Israel made a strategic mistake by killing an Iranian general. “This crime will not go unanswered,” said Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri the next day.
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The reason chosen by the perpetrators of the attack was not a coincidence. As a key figure in the “Resistance” axis – a coalition of states and non-state actors whose ranks include the Iraqi Shiite militias, the Syrian regime, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi rebels in Yemen – Ghassem Soleimani was the architect of the regional military Iran's activities. The general had also been on the front line in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) organization.
“Cowardly act”
Shortly after the double attack in Kerman, President Ebrahim Raïssi promised on the social network that the Iranian security services “will soon identify and punish the perpetrators of this cowardly act.” None of the leaders pointed the finger at any particular foreign country or military group. As of Thursday morning, Iran's intelligence ministry had not assigned responsibility for the two explosions.
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