Iran said Thursday that it has identified the suspected mastermind behind two suicide bombings that recently killed nearly 100 people at a memorial site for the late Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike years ago.
The IRNA news agency published a statement from the Ministry of Intelligence that said the main suspect who planned the January 3 attack in Kerman, a city southeast of the Iranian capital Tehran, was a Tajik citizen known by his pseudonym Abdollah Tajiki.
Tajiki reportedly entered the country via Iran's southeastern border in mid-December and left the country two days before the attack after making the bombs.
According to the Associated Press, a bomber first detonated its explosives at the ceremony in Kerman, then another attacked 20 minutes later as rescuers and other people tried to help those wounded in the first blast.
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People pray over the flag-draped coffins of victims of the January 3 attacks during their funeral ceremony in the Iranian city of Kerman on Friday, January 5. (AP/Vahid Salemi)
The report identified one of the attackers by his family name, Bozrov, and said the man was 24 years old and had dual Tajik and Israeli citizenship. It was said he also crossed the southeastern border into Iran after months of training by the Islamic State terrorist group in Afghanistan.
The report added that authorities were still trying to identify the second suicide bomber, while 35 other people were taken into custody in connection with the attacks.
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Former Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, center, attends a meeting in Tehran, Iran, in September 2016. (Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran via AP, File) (AP)
As of Thursday, the death toll from the attack stands at 94.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks last week. A statement by the terrorist group published on Telegram named activists Omar al-Mowahid and Sayefulla al-Mujahid as suicide bombers behind the “double martyrdom operation.”
People gather at the site of an explosion in the Iranian city of Kerman on January 3. (Sare Tajalli/ISNA/AP)
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Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, was killed in a US strike in Baghdad on January 3, 2020, just days after Iranian-backed militia supporters stormed the US embassy in Iraq.
Fox News' Timothy HJ Nerozzi and Peter Aitken contributed to this report.
Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.