Explosions In Iran
After a blast in Kerman, Iran, on Wednesday, January 3, 2024, people stay close to a man who was injured. On Wednesday, Iran’s state-run media said that explosions at a celebration for a famous Iranian general who was killed in a U.S. bombing in 2020 killed at least 73 people and injured more than 170 others. Associated Press photo by Mahdi Karbakhsh Ravari.
AP reports that in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, At a memorial for a famous Iranian general killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2020, two bombs went off minutes apart, killing at least 103 people and injured at least 188 more. The Middle East is still on edge because of Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
At first, no one claimed credit for what seemed to be the deadliest attack on Iran by militants since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Explosions shook the city of Kerman, which is about 820 kilometres (510 miles) southeast of Tehran, the capital. Shrapnel flew into a crowd of people screaming as they ran away from the first explosion.
On January 4, 2020, a U.S. drone strike in Iraq killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was in charge of the Revolutionary Guard’s special Quds Force. The event marked the fourth anniversary of his death. Bombs went off near his grave as long lines of people waited for the event to start.
Officials and Iranian state TV called the attacks “bombings,” but they didn’t say exactly what happened right away. The interior minister, Ahmad Vahidi, told state TV that the first bomb went off around 3 p.m. and the second one went off about 20 minutes later. He said the most people were killed and injured in the second blast.
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Militants often use a second blast that happens later to target responders to an emergency and kill more people.
The number of deaths was given by emergency officials to Iranian state TV and the state-run IRNA news agency. The number of deaths rose quickly in the hours after the blasts.
Iran has many enemies, such as exile groups, militant groups, and even players within the government, who could be behind the attack.
Israel has attacked Iran because of its nuclear programme, but only to kill specific people and not to kill a lot of people. Sunni extremist groups, like the Islamic State, have killed many civilians in big attacks in Shiite-majority Iran in the past, but not in Kerman, which is usually pretty calm.
Iran has also had large-scale protests in recent years, such as the one in 2022 over the death of Mahsa Amini, who was 22 years old. Attacks on the country have also come from people living outside of it, going back to the chaos that followed the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Over the past few decades, Iran has been arming militant groups like Hamas, Hezbollah (a Shiite militia in Lebanon), and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Meanwhile, Hezbollah and the Houthis have both started attacks against Israel, saying they are acting on behalf of the Palestinians. This comes after Hamas’ attacks on Israel on October 7 that killed 1,200 people and took over 200 others hostage.
Israel is thought to have been behind the attack in Beirut on Tuesday that killed a deputy head of Hamas. The attack happened in an area with a lot of people, but not many people were injured.
Many people who support Iran’s theocracy look up to Soleimani as a national hero because he planned Iran’s military activities in the area. He also helped protect Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government after the Arab Spring protests against him turned into a civil war and then a war in the region that is still going on today.
Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, most people in Iran didn’t know much about Soleimani. His fame and mystery grew after U.S. officials called for his death for helping to arm rebels with roadside bombs that killed and injured U.S. troops.
In fifteen years, Soleimani had become Iran’s most famous battlefield general. He had ignored calls to get involved in politics and become just as powerful, if not more so, than the country’s civilian leaders.
In the end, the general was killed by a drone strike ordered by the Trump administration. This was one of many cases that got worse after the United States pulled out of Tehran’s nuclear deal with the other world powers in 2018.
A lot of people have come to see the body of Soleimani in the past. A stampede happened at his funeral in Kerman in 2020, and at least 56 people were killed and more than 200 were injured. Thousands of people were in the way of the parade. On the other hand, Kerman has been mostly unaffected by the recent attacks and protests in Iran. The same-named city and province are in the middle of Iran’s desert plains.
A truck bombing in 1981 at the offices of the Islamic Republican Party in Tehran was the deadliest attack on Iran since the revolution until Wednesday. At least 72 people were killed in that attack, including the boss of the party, four ministers, eight deputy ministers, and 23 members of parliament.
Many people died in the Cinema Rex in Abadan in 1978, just before the revolution. The fire was set on purpose and spread quickly.
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