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A pair of explosions at a cemetery in Iran on Wednesday killed at least 95 people and injured 210 more during a ceremony to mark the fourth anniversary of the death of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the former Iranian commander killed in a U.S. drone strike.
Israel did not claim responsibility for the strike, but the stunning assault added to the mounting tensions in the region and sparked fresh talk that the clash between Israel and the Iran-allied Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza was threatening to morph into a much larger Middle East war.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah Shiite movement, warned in a lengthy address that his fighters would not “remain silent” after Israel’s suspected strike Tuesday of a top Hamas leader living under Hezbollah’s protection in a Beirut suburb. Meanwhile, fresh Hamas-Israeli clashes were reported across Gaza.
Iran’s state-controlled Tasnim News Agency said two bags containing explosives were remotely detonated at the entrance of the Martyrs’ Cemetery in the southeastern city of Kerman, where Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force and a prime organizer of the Axis of Resistance linking anti-U.S. and anti-Israel militias and movement across the Middle East, was buried after being hit by a U.S.-ordered drone strike in 2020.
Iran said Thursday would be a day of mourning for those killed in the blasts. Meanwhile, Tehran’s envoy to the United Nations said “comprehensive investigations” were launched to track down those who carried out the bombings and their backers.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is committed to leveraging all available mechanisms to ensure accountability for those responsible and their accomplices in this heinous terrorist act,” Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “As one of the primary victims of terrorism and having directly experienced its catastrophic consequences, [Iran] remains steadfast in its unwavering commitment to leading the fight against this scourge.”
No group has claimed responsibility, but Mohammad Mokhbar, the first vice president of Iran, blamed Israel for the bombing. He said “the representatives of the Zionist regime” were responsible for “spilling the blood of innocent civilians on the ground,” according to the BBC’s Persian language news service.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said suggestions that the U.S. might have had a hand in the attack were “ridiculous.” Another senior administration official suggested that the Islamic State, the radical Sunni Muslim terrorist group that has long battled Iran and its Shiite allies, could be responsible.
“It does look like a terrorist attack, the type of thing we’ve seen ISIS do in the past,” the official told reporters. “And as far as we’re aware, that’s … our going assumption at the moment.”
Israel is thought to have carried out targeted assassinations in Iran, including those of several members of Tehran’s nuclear program from 2010 to 2012. Yet Iran has other enemies, including ISIS and Jaish ul-Adl, a Sunni Islamist militant organization that has claimed responsibility for several attacks on Iranian military personnel.
“The perpetrators and masterminds of this cowardly act will soon be identified and brought to justice by the capable security and law enforcement forces,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. “The enemies of the nation must know that such actions can never undermine the unwavering determination and will of the Iranian people to defend the Islamic ideals.”
Just before the first explosion around 3 p.m. local time, TV broadcasts showed thousands of people converging on Kerman, Solemani’s hometown. The second blast happened about 20 minutes later and resulted in most of the casualties, according to the BBC, which cited an official with Iran’s interior ministry.
Iran’s National Emergency Services said the number of people killed in the twin blasts would probably rise in the coming days.
“Unfortunately, the information we have received indicates that a number of the injured are in very critical condition,” NES spokesman Babak Yekta Parast said on state-controlled TV. He said helicopters were on standby to take patients to hospitals in Tehran, about 500 miles away.
While not discussing Israel’s suspected role in the Soleimani attack, Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea made it clear Wednesday that Israel was determined to track down all Hamas leaders responsible for attacking Israel on Oct. 7. Mossad was “committed to settling the score with the murderers who descended upon the Gaza envelope,” Mr. Barnea said at a public event in Israel.
Soleimani’s role
Soleimani was seen as the second most powerful figure in Iran after the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His Quds Force was responsible for Iran’s unconventional warfare missions and military intelligence operations. He played a critical role in advancing Tehran’s political and military ambitions across the region and was a key figure in Iran’s goal to drive the U.S. from the Middle East.
He was killed when a U.S. drone struck his two-car convoy on a road near Baghdad International Airport. President Trump authorized the mission in response to what White House officials said was an “escalating series of attacks” against U.S. personnel in the region. Mr. Trump called Soleimani the “No. 1 terrorist anywhere in the world.”
The assassination and Iran’s response by attacking two military bases in Iraq that housed U.S. troops marked a high point in the tensions between Washington and Tehran and nearly spiraled into a full-blown conflict.
Tensions between Iran and Israel have reached a new high over Israel’s war on Iranian-backed Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for their Oct. 7 rampage, which killed more than 1,300 people. U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria have come under attack over President Biden’s support for Israel.
On Tuesday, a suspected Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed Saleh al-Auri, a senior Hamas official who often acted as a link with Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants. Last month, an Israeli airstrike killed Gen. Razi Mousavi, a top IRGC commander, near the Syrian capital, Damascus. Iranian officials vowed that Israel “will certainly pay” for its actions.
Yemen’s Houthi militants, also backed by Iran, have attacked several commercial ships they say are linked to Israel passing through the entrance to the Red Sea. That prompted the U.S. to assemble a multinational naval task force, Operation Prosperity Guardian, designed to protect maritime traffic in the region. A dozen nations, including the U.S., issued a statement Wednesday warning the Houthi rebels to stop the attacks against merchant ships.
“We call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews,” said the statement released by the White House. “The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and the free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways.”
In Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah used a televised address to condemn the “dangerous” killing of senior Hamas official Saleh al Arouri and two military aides Tuesday in Beirut and vowed quick but unspecified retaliation. U.S. officials have been working feverishly to prevent the Israel-Hamas fight from spreading to an all-out war between Israel and the much better-armed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Mr. Nasrallah also appeared eager to contain the conflict despite sometimes belligerent rhetoric. “If the enemy thinks of waging a war on Lebanon, we will fight without restraint, without rules, without limits and without restrictions,” Mr. Nasrallah said in a speech timed to mark Soleimani’s death.
“We are not afraid of war,” he said, but “for now, we are fighting on the frontline following meticulous calculations.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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