DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Two bombs exploded and killed at least 103 people Wednesday at a commemoration for a prominent Iranian general slain by the U.S. in a 2020 drone strike, Iranian officials said, as the Middle East remains on edge over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for what appeared to be the deadliest militant attack to target Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran’s leaders vowed to punish those responsible for the blasts, which wounded at least 211 people.
The blasts minutes apart shook the city of Kerman, about 510 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran, and sprayed shrapnel into a screaming crowd fleeing the first explosion.
The gathering marked the fourth anniversary of the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq. The explosions occurred near his grave site as long lines of people gathered for the event.
Iranian state television and officials described the attacks as bombings, without immediately giving clear details of what happened.
The first bomb was detonated around 3 p.m., and the other went off some 20 minutes later, the Iranian interior minister, Ahmad Vahidi, told state television. He said the second blast killed and wounded the most people.
Images and video shared on social media appeared to correspond with the accounts of officials, who said the first blast happened about 765 yards from Soleimani’s grave in the Kerman Martyrs Cemetery near a parking lot. The crowd then rushed west along Shohada Street, where the second blast struck less than a mile from the grave.
A delayed second explosion is often used by militants to inflict more casualties by targeting emergency personnel responding to an attack.
Iranian state TV and state-run IRNA news agency quoted emergency officials for the casualty figures. Authorities said Thursday would be a national day of mourning.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the attackers will face “a harsh response,” though he didn’t name any possible suspect. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi added: “Undoubtedly, the perpetrators and leaders of this cowardly act will soon be identified and punished.”
Iran has multiple foes who could be behind the assault, including exile groups, militant organizations and state actors.
While Israel has carried out attacks in Iran over its nuclear program, it has conducted targeted assassinations, not mass casualty bombings. Sunni extremist groups including the Islamic State group have conducted large-scale attacks in the past that killed civilians in Shiite-majority Iran, though not in relatively peaceful Kerman.
Iran also has seen mass protests in recent years, including those over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in 2022. The country also has been targeted by exile groups in attacks dating back to the turmoil surrounding its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iran itself has been arming militant groups over the decades, including Hamas, the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. As Israel wages its devastating war in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people, both Hezbollah and the Houthis have launched attacks targeting Israel that they say come on behalf of the Palestinians.
Israel is suspected of launching an attack Tuesday that killed a deputy head of Hamas in Beirut, but that attack caused limited casualties in a densely populated neighborhood of the Lebanese capital. Last week, a suspected Israeli strike killed a Revolutionary Guard commander in Syria.
A Houthi spokesman, Mohammed Abdel-Salam, sought to link the bombings to Iran’s “support for the resistance forces in Palestine and Lebanon,” though he did not specifically blame anyone for the attack.
