Beirut 3 january 2024 by Isabelle Wond
It is a massacre of civilians of shocking proportions that has struck Iran, targeted by two explosions while tensions with the USA and Israel over the Middle Eastern conflict are at their peak.
At least 103 people died and over 210 were injured along the road leading to the cemetery in Kerman, in the south-east of the country, while they went with thousands of other pilgrims to pay homage to the tomb of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Qods Force of the Pasdaran and number 1 enemy of the Jewish State, killed exactly four years ago in an American raid at Baghdad airport.
The Iranian authorities speak of a "terrorist" attack - so far no one has claimed responsibility - but they refrain from explicitly identifying a culprit. Attacks like this have already bloodied the country over the years and have been claimed by various groups: from ISIS to the separatists of Baluchistan, to the Arab ones in the south. The Israeli secret service Mossad has instead been accused by Tehran of targeted killings of nuclear scientists and military leaders both in Iran and abroad. The latest case is that of Seyed Razi Mousavi, a Pasdaran general shot dead on 25 December in Syria. The double explosion in Kerman also occurred the day after the attack in Beirut in which Hamas number 2 Saleh al-Arouri was killed.
To reject any suspicion of a possible hand of Israel in today's massacre, the Americans immediately intervened: "There is no independent information on what happened in Iran, it is too early to make assessments but we have no reason to think that Israel is involved," said US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, also ruling out any US involvement in the episode.
But late in the evening, the Iranian president's senior advisor, Mohammad Jamshidi, blamed Israel and the United States for the two explosions. "Washington says the US and Israel had no role in the terrorist attack in Kerman, Iran. Really? A fox smells its own den first," wrote Mohammad Jamshidi on X. "Make no mistake. The responsibility for this crime belongs to the US and Zionist regimes and terrorism is just a tool."
The "hateful criminals" behind the double attack in Kerman will have a "severe response" and "just punishment", said the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, generically accusing those he defined as "the diabolical enemies of the Iranian nation".
President Ebrahim Raisi - who canceled a planned visit to Turkey - said that the perpetrators will be "soon identified and punished" and that "the nation's enemies must know that these actions can never break the solid resolve of the Iranian nation". The Iranian response will be "strong and destructive and in the shortest possible time", warned the Interior Minister, Ahmad Vahidi, underlining however that investigations are still underway to identify the culprits. The minister said that most of the victims died in the second explosion, when people rushed to help those injured in the first.
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