“We will find you wherever you are,” said Major General Hossein Salami on Friday at the funeral of victims of the bomb attack, which the radical Islamic IS claimed responsibility for. Iranian intelligence announced nine arrests in connection with the attack that killed 89 people on Wednesday.
The arrests took place in six provinces, the state news agency Irna reported on Friday, citing a statement from the secret service. The people were part of a network of supporters of the attackers. During a raid on the two suicide bombers’ accommodation in the city of Kerman, additional explosive belts were found, the intelligence report said. One of the two attackers had Tajik citizenship.
The attack occurred at a memorial ceremony marking the fourth anniversary of the death of Revolutionary Guard chief Qassem Soleimani in Kerman. 300 people were injured in the attack in Soleimani’s hometown. ISIS said on Thursday that two of its members had carried out a suicide attack in the middle of the crowd wearing explosive belts. It was the deadliest in the Islamic Republic’s 45-year history. According to consistent Iranian media reports, a dozen children under the age of 15 were among the dead.
According to the IS terrorist militia, two assassins detonated their explosive belts during the memorial events for Soleimani in Kerman. IS considers Iran’s predominant Shiite population to be apostates from Islam and despises them. Shia, the smaller of the two major branches of Islam, is the state religion of the Islamic Republic.
“Our enemies can see the power of Iran, and the whole world knows its strength and capabilities,” President Raisi said in a televised address. “Our armed forces will decide the place and time of action. Be assured that the power of initiative lies in the hands of our God-ordained troops.”
The funeral ceremonies took place on Friday at the Imam Ali Mosque in the city of Kerman, where crowds gathered in front of dozens of coffins covered with the Iranian flag, state television reported. Family members wept over the coffins of those killed covered with the Iranian flag. “Revenge, revenge,” mourners demanded. They chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
The mourners also carried the yellow flags of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah in Lebanon and portraits of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by the US military four years ago. The number of victims was officially put at 89 on Friday following two more people succumbed to their injuries.
The government in Tehran has repeatedly accused the USA and Israel of supporting militant groups in attacks in the Islamic Republic. IS has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Iran. In 2022, 15 people were killed in an attack on a Shiite shrine. In 2017, IS said it carried out explosive attacks on the Iranian parliament and the grave of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini.
Hundreds of people gathered at his grave on the anniversary of Soleimani’s death. The general of the influential Revolutionary Guard was killed in a US drone strike in the Iraqi capital Baghdad at the beginning of 2020. He was commander of the Quds Brigade, the Revolutionary Guard’s elite unit for operations abroad.
At the mourning ceremony in Kerman, Iranian leaders threatened their enemies. According to Interior Minister Ahmad Wahidi, there were also the first arrests in connection with the attack. Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said: “Be assured, we will not allow the enemy to dominate.”
However, the head of the Site Intelligence Group, which specializes in extremist propaganda, Rita Katz, believes IS’s influence in the region is limited. The expert wrote in an analysis that IS has no recognizable leader and no central headquarters. According to her, the Islamist organization therefore has “no prospects of regaining the importance it once had in the Middle East in the near future.”
