Iran’s intelligence ministry on Thursday named a senior suspect in the twin suicide bombings last week that the Islamic State organization claimed was a ringleader and bomb maker, as the number of people killed in the attack increased to at least 94, according to state television.
The deadliest incident in Iran in decades occurred on January 3, when two suicide bombers targeted a memorial service for an Iranian General Qaseem Soleimani killed in an American drone strike in Iraq in 2020. The Middle East as a whole is still in a state of tension.
At the event in Kerman, some 820 kilometers (510 miles) southeast of Tehran, one attacker detonated his explosives first. Twenty minutes later, as rescuers and other people attempted to assist the injured from the initial blast, another bomber attacked.
Who is the Iran Bomb Suspect?
The IRNA news agency claimed on Thursday that the Ministry of Intelligence has revealed that the primary suspect responsible for the bombs was a Tajik national going by the identity Abdollah Tajiki.
As to the ministry’s statement, he crossed the southeast border to enter Iran in mid-December and left two days prior to the attack after laying the bombs.
On January 4, the terrorist organization ISIL (ISIS) took credit for the attack at a memorial for top commander Qassem Soleimani in Kerman, which is located approximately 510 miles (820 kilometers) southeast of Tehran.
Authorities were still attempting to identify the second suicide bomber, according to the story. Omar al-Mowahed and Seif-Allah al-Mujahed were named as the two bombers by the Islamic State organization in their claim of responsibility.
Iranian officials have detained 35 persons in various provinces so far who are allegedly connected to the attacks.
Iran promises retaliation
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi threatened to exact revenge for the attack last week during funerals in Kerman, telling Tehran’s adversaries that “our forces will decide on the place and time to take action.”
The bombs were opposed by the United Nations, the European Union, and a number of other nations, including China, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq.
Tehran regularly claims that the US and Israel both fund armed groups opposed to Iran that have carried out previous attacks.
ISIL took credit for an attack on a Shia shrine in Iran in 2022 that left fifteen people dead.
The 2017 twin explosions that targeted the Iranian parliament and the tomb of the country’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, are among the previous assaults that have been linked to ISIL.
In 2020, Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) elite Quds Force, was assassinated in an Iraqi drone strike that was authorized by US President Donald Trump.
Authorities said on Thursday that 94 people had died as a result of the incident, 14 of whom were citizens of Afghanistan. Over 280 individuals suffered injuries.