Two explosions minutes apart at a commemoration in Iran for a prominent general who died in a US drone strike in 2020 killed at least 103 people and injured more than 140 others on Wednesday.
The blasts came as the Middle East remains on edge over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. No group immediately claimed responsibility for what Iranian state media called a “terroristic” attack shortly after the explosions in Kerman, about 510 miles (820km) south-east of the capital, Tehran. While Israel has carried out attacks in Iran over its nuclear programme, it has conducted targeted assassinations, not mass-casualty bombings.
Sunni extremist groups, including Islamic State, have carried out large-scale attacks in the past that killed civilians in Shiite-majority Iran, though not in relatively peaceful Kerman.
Iranian state television quoted Babak Yektaparast, a spokesman for the country’s emergency services, as the source of the casualty figures.
The blasts struck an event marking the the fourth anniversary of the killing of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, in a US drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.
Wednesday’s explosions occurred near his grave site in Kerman, and authorities said some people were injured while fleeing afterwards. Footage suggested that the second blast occurred some 15 minutes after the first.
The post Over 100 killed in blasts at ceremony honouring Iranian general appeared first on DailyNews.