The number of victims of two explosions in Kerman, Iran, marking the fourth anniversary of the death of the former general of Iran's elite Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, is increasing.
According to the latest information, 103 people were killed, while 141 were wounded. Iranian officials claim that it was a theoretical attack, but they did not specify who could be behind it.
Several hundred people were heading towards Soleimani's tomb as part of a ceremony to honor Soleimani when the attack took place.
A large number of ambulances arrived at the scene of the accident, while hospitals in Kerman and the surrounding area were put on standby to treat the injured.
Rescuers of the Red Crescent in Kerman are helping the wounded, reports Iranian state television. "Rapid response teams are evacuating the injured, but waves of crowds are blocking roads," said the city's Red Crescent director.
"Our rapid response teams are evacuating the injured, but waves of crowds are blocking the roads," Reza Falah, head of the Kerman Province Red Crescent, told Iran's state television.
The governor of Iran's Kerman province called the explosions a "terrorist act", the BBC reports.
The head of the Kerman Emergency Department says the two explosions occurred within 10 minutes of each other, and that they were the result of "two explosives placed at different locations on the road used by visitors," Al Mayadeen news agency reports.
Who was General Qassem Soleimani?
General Qassem Soleimani was the mastermind of all Iranian military operations in the region. He led the elite Quds units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
He was killed four years ago in an attack by an American drone, near the Baghdad airport. The BBC reminds that the action was approved by the then US President Donald Trump.
Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via APKasim Suleimani was killed four years ago
Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was also killed in the attack. Iran then fired several missiles at US bases in Baghdad in retaliation. AP reports that no US soldiers were killed, but that many suffered minor injuries from the explosions.
The decision to be killed
The killing of General Soleimani in Iraq was a temporary culmination of tensions between Washington and Tehran that have been growing since May 2018, when Trump tore up the Iran Nuclear Agreement, re-imposed sanctions, threatened sanctions on companies of European allies that did business with Iran, and thus overturned years of negotiations with the Iranian authorities. Iran's response was to continue its uranium enrichment program.
How is it "time" wrote, the decision on the secret mission to locate and kill Soleimani was made, according to a US official, after the killing of a contractor and the wounding of four US soldiers on December 27, 2019, when thirty rockets were fired at the US base in Kirkuk.
The US Air Force retaliated, carrying out a series of airstrikes against the bases of militias close to the Iranian Guard and the Kataib Hezbollah group (to be distinguished from the Lebanese Hezbollah) in Syria and Iraq.
On that Friday, January 3, four years ago in the morning, an American MQ-9 Reaper drone fired missiles at a convoy of cars at the very exit of Baghdad Airport, killing the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Iranian Quds (Jerusalem) Special Forces, Qasem Soleimani. American rockets also killed the leader of the Kataib Hezbollah group and the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and eight other people.
