At Least 103 Dead in Blasts at Memorial for Iranian Commander Soleimani

A vehicle of the Iranian Red Crescent driving near the site of explosions in Kerman. PHOTO: IRAN PRESS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

At Least 103 Dead in Blasts at Memorial for Iranian Commander Soleimani

Wall Street Journal-Jan 3rd 2023

Jared Malsin

Aresu Eqbali

At least 103 people were killed in explosions in Iran near a public ceremony commemorating the death of a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer killed by an American airstrike in 2020, the country’s state media reported. Iranian officials said the blasts were the work of terrorists.

At least 170 others were wounded by the blasts, which took place as crowds gathered near the tomb of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, according to Iran’s government-run Islamic Republic News Agency. Iran said it was investigating the cause of the explosions.

AZERB.

TURKEY

TURKMENISTAN

Caspian

Sea

Tehran

IRAQ

AFGHAN.

IRAN

Kerman

PAK.

SAUDI ARABIA

Gulf of Oman

U.A.E.

The blasts come at a moment of heightened tensions across the Middle East, with war raging between Israel and Hamas, an Islamist militant group that has moved closer to Iran in recent years. A senior Hamas leader, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed on Tuesday in Beirut in what Lebanese officials described as a suspected Israeli attack. The Israeli military declined to comment on whether it was responsible for the attack in Beirut.

Wednesday’s blasts in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman took place near a cemetery where Iranians were marking the death of Soleimani, a top commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who was killed in an American drone strike that also stoked tensions between Washington and Iran.

Television footage of the incident showed crowds of people, including people carrying a banner in the memorial procession, running and screaming following the sound of a blast.

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https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-explosion-qassem-soleimani-ceremony-85da109d