Reports of between two and four explosions at ceremony marking fourth anniversary of killing of top general Qassem Suleimani
Two explosions have killed at least 103 people and injured scores more at a memorial ceremony in Iran marking the fourth anniversary of the US killing of Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s al-Quds force and one of the most powerful men in the Middle East.
A senior official called the blasts a terrorist attack, without elaborating on who could be behind them. No one has immediately claimed responsibility for what appeared to be the deadliest attack to target Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
According to IRNA, Iran’s official news agency, the first explosion in the south-central city of Kerman occurred 700 metres from Suleimani’s burial place and the second 1km from it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
State-run media in Iran cited Babak Yektaparast, a spokesperson for the country’s emergency service, as saying 73 people had been killed and 170 wounded.
Suleimani’s body is buried in the cemetery along with 1,024 other people regarded as martyrs, and the site has become a place of pilgrimage for supporters of the so-called “axis of resistance” against the US and the west.
Suleimani was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020 and was seen as the leader directing Iranian proxy forces in Iraq and Syria.
Iran only recently said it had eradicated a group backed by the Mossad, the Israeli state secret service.
On 25 December, an Israeli airstrike in Syria killed a top commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), prompting Tehran to threaten that Israel would “certainly pay” for its actions.
Iranian state media identified the commander as Razi Mousavi, a senior adviser of the Quds Force, saying he had been killed in an airstrike near the Syrian capital, Damascus.
The original article contains 377 words, the summary contains 166 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!