ISIS has taken credit for a double suicide bomb attack Wednesday that killed at least 84 people at a ceremony honoring Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qassem Soleimani on the fourth anniversary of his death.
The fundamentalist terror group issued a Telegram statement Thursday taking credit for the carnage in the city of Kerman, which marked the Islamic Republic’s worst terror attack in decades as unrest spreads across the Middle East.
Experts who confirmed the statement believe the extremists were trying to take advantage of regional instability triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack against Israel.
They speculated ISIS may be trying to expand Israel’s war in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip by targeting the ceremony honoring Soleimani, who was killed by a US airstrike in Baghdad early in 2020.
Wednesday’s attack also injured some 284 people who were paying their respects to the military leader, who had directed a network of militias who targeted American troops during the lengthy US occupation of Iraq.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed a “harsh response” to the blasts, one of which tore chunks of asphalt from the blood-stained road — suggesting the explosive had been packed with shrapnel to cause even greater damage.
“I didn’t get what happened exactly, this happened very suddenly,” said Mohammad Mehdi Ghalekhani, a volunteer with the Revolutionary Guards’ Basij force who was injured in the “horrific” attack.
“When this happened many people died, and most people where injured. Those who died didn’t have any intact body parts — no whole hands or faces.”
ISIS identified the suicide attackers as Omar al-Mowahed and Seif-Allah al-Mujahed, adding that the pair detonated explosive vests.
Attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea by Iranian-backed Houthis rebels based in Yemen and suspected Israeli air strikes against terror targets in Lebanon and Syria in recent days had added to regional unease and empowered ISIS to unleash its brutal attack, experts suggested.
“This falls under the modus operandi of ISIS, especially since it was such a mass casualty attack,” said Aaron Y. Zelin, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“They are kind of like [comic book character] The Joker. They want to see the world burn. They don’t care how it happens as long as it benefits them.”
Iran had indirectly blamed Israel for the attack, and did not immediately acknowledge that ISIS was at fault.
In Kerman Thursday, residents stepped on signs bearing the Israeli flag and the slogan “Death to Israel.”
Iranian state media said one blast happened about a mile away from Soleimani’s crypt, outside a security perimeter. The second explosion happened more than a mile-and-a-half away from the site.
“The moment I turned around to tell my husband’s sister, ‘Let’s go to the square,’ the bomb exploded,” 38-year-old Mahdieh Sazmand said from her hospital bed.
“If we were just 10 steps further we would have been right over the bomb.”
With Post wires
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ISIS takes credit for Iran suicide bombing attacks that killed 84, injured hundreds - New York Post
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