Iran Conducts Burial Services for Victims of Islamic State’s Dual Bomb Attacks

During a memorial service in Kerman for a general killed in a 2020 U.S. drone strike, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi joined the grieving families of the 89 people who perished in two explosions, which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for.

These bombings occurred amidst the heightened tensions in the Middle East due to Israel’s conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The funeral in Kerman, typically a tranquil city situated 820 kilometers southeast of Tehran, was charged with emotions and political undertones.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s top commander linked the attacks to the U.S., eliciting chants of “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” from the crowd. General Hossein Salami criticized the nature of the attacks, questioning why innocent women and children were targeted.

Iranian state television echoed this sentiment, broadcasting past comments from Donald Trump in 2016, where he inaccurately labeled former President Barack Obama as the “founder” of the Islamic State. Obama’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq in 2011 has been criticized for enabling the rise of the Islamic State, which once allied with al-Qaida and established a vast territory in Iraq and Syria by 2014. U.S. forces later collaborated with allies under both Obama and Trump to reclaim these areas.

The attacks in Kerman, which occurred on Wednesday, involved two suicide bombers who struck during the commemoration for Guard General Qassem Soleimani, a key figure in Iran’s response to the Islamic State in Syria and in supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad. Soleimani, who had strong connections to various proxy groups in the Middle East, including Hamas, was viewed by the U.S. as a key orchestrator of attacks against American troops in Iraq.

The death toll from these attacks rose to at least 89, with about 280 others injured. The Islamic State group’s claim of responsibility linked the bombings to Israel’s conflict in the Gaza Strip.