DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Explosions at an event honoring a prominent Iranian general slain in a U.S. airstrike in 2020 have killed at least 20 people and wounded 40 others, state-run media in Iran reported Wednesday.
A senior official called the blasts a “terroristic" attack, without elaborating on who could be behind them amid wider tensions in the Mideast over Israel's ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The state-run IRNA news agency quoted Dr. Mohammad Saberi, the head of Kerman emergency services, for the casualty figure.
The blasts struck an event marking the the fourth anniversary of the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard's elite Quds Force. who died in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in January 2020. The explosions occurred near his grave site in Kerman, about 820 kilometers (510 miles) southeast of the capital, Tehran.
Authorities said some people were injured while fleeing afterward.
Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s regional military activities and is hailed as a national icon among supporters of Iran’s theocracy. However, to American officials, he represented a deadly foe during the Iraq war, one who helped arm militants with penetrating roadside bombs that killed and maimed U.S. troops.
Kerman's deputy governor, Rahman Jalali, called the attack “terroristic,” without elaborating. Iran has multiple foes who could be behind the assault, including exile groups, militant organizations and state actors. Iran has supported Hamas as well as the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi rebels.
Soleimani's death has drawn large processions in the past. At his funeral in 2020, a stampede broke out and at least 56 people were killed and more than 200 were injured as thousands thronged the procession.
