At least 103 people were killed and dozens injured in two explosions this Wednesday near a cemetery in Iran where a ceremony was being held to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the death of the country's top commander, Qasem Soleimani, who died in 2020 after an attack with Americans Drones, as Iranian state media reported this Wednesday.
Iranian state television reported first an explosion and then a second during the ceremony in the southeastern city of Kerman, adding that at least 100 people had died. The semi-official newspaper Nournews stated that “several gas tanks exploded on the road to the cemetery.” An unnamed senior official told state news agency IRNA that “two explosive devices planted along the road to the Kerman Martyrs Cemetery were detonated remotely by terrorists.”
Babak Yektaparast, spokesman for the Iranian emergency service, reported a few hours ago that 73 people had died. and 170 had been injured. State television later increased the death toll to at least 100. So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Videos broadcast by Iranian media showed dozens of bodies scattered across the site, some passers-by trying to tend to the survivors and others rushing to leave the area of the blast. “Despite all the security and protective measures, a terrible noise could be heard there. We are still investigating,” Reza Fallah, head of the Kerman Red Crescent Society, told state television. Red Crescent rescuers treated the wounded at the ceremony where hundreds of Iranians had gathered to commemorate the anniversary of Soleimani's death. “We are now evacuating the wounded and injured from the area. “The rush is huge and the work is pretty hard, all the roads there are blocked,” said Fallah.
State television showed Red Crescent rescue teams tending to the wounded at the ceremony where hundreds of Iranians had gathered to mark the anniversary of Soleimani's death. “Our rapid response teams are evacuating the injured… But there are waves of crowds blocking the roads,” Reza Fallah, head of the Kerman province Red Crescent, told state television.
Qasem Soleimani died in a US drone strike in Iraq in January 2020 at the age of 62. He was a key figure in the Iranian regime and one of the country's most popular figures. After serving in the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988, Soleimani quickly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming head of the Quds Force, the foreign arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). As a commander, he conducted covert operations abroad and advanced Iran's long campaign to expel U.S. forces from the Middle East.
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