The IS statement came as a national mourning was declared in Iran following Wednesday’s deadly bombings.
In a statement on the Telegram social network, IS said several members of the group “used their explosive vests”.
The incident took place on Wednesday when a crowd of people gathered at the tomb of Revolutionary Guard General Qasem Soleimani, who died four years ago, to honor his memory.
Iranian investigators have already confirmed that at least the first blast was a suicide bomber. In their view, “it is highly likely that there was another fatal bomber,” the official IRNA news agency reported earlier, citing an informed source.
Soleimani, who headed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) foreign operations unit, the Quds Force, was a staunch foe of IS, the Sunni extremist group that has carried out attacks in Shiite-majority Iran in the past.
Tehran lowered the death toll from around 100 a day following what Iranian officials said was a terrorist attack near Soleimani’s tomb in the southern city of Kerman that also injured hundreds of people.
In the past, jihadists and other militants have carried out deadly attacks in Iran, as well as targeted killings of officials and nuclear scientists, blamed on arch-enemy Israel.
Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi hinted to the ISNA news agency on Thursday regarding strengthening security along the porous borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He said officials had identified “priority points to block” along the border with both countries, which has long been a key entry point for militant groups, drug smugglers and illegal migrants.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has vowed a tough response following Wednesday’s twin bombings that claimed lives. He said the attack was carried out by “evil and criminal enemies of the Iranian nation”, but did not name them.
The blow comes as tensions rise in the region over US ally Israel’s war with Iran-backed Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This war broke out following the unprecedented attacks carried out by Hamas on the territory of Israel on October 7.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s deputy head of political affairs, Mohammad Jamshidi, said on the X social network that “responsibility for this crime lies with the US and the Zionist (Israeli) regime, and terrorism is only a tool.”
The United States on Wednesday rejected suggestions that its ally Israel or Washington were behind the deadly blasts. Israel declined to comment.
“The United States was not involved in any way, and any claims to the contrary are absurd,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
“We have no reason to believe that Israel was involved in this explosion,” he added.
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2024-07-09 18:01:39
