DUBAI: Two bombs exploded minutes apart on Wednesday at a commemoration for a prominent Iranian general slain in a US drone strike in 2020, officials in Iran said, killing at least 103 people and wounding at least 188 as the Middle East remains on edge over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for what appeared to be the deadliest militant attack to target Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. The blasts shook the city of Kerman, about 820 kilometres (510 miles) southeast of the capital, Tehran, and sent shrapnel hurtling into a screaming crowd fleeing the first explosion.
The gathering marked the fourth anniversary of the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, in a US drone strike in Iraq in January 2020. The explosions occurred near his gravesite as long lines of people gathered for the event.