Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber vowed revenge on Thursday for explosions that killed nearly 100 people at a ceremony to commemorate top commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone in 2020 in Iraq.
“A very strong retaliation will be handed to them on the hands of the soldiers of Soleimani,” Mokhber told reporters at a hospital were some of the wounded were receiving treatment for the bloodiest attack since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
No one claimed responsibility for the blasts. A senior official in U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration said the blasts appeared to represent “a terrorist attack” of the type carried out in the past by Islamic State militants.
In a statement, Iran’s powerful Guards described Wednesday’s attack as a cowardly act “aimed at creating insecurity and seeking revenge against the nation’s deep love and devotion to the Islamic Republic”.
The powerful Guards also said the attack “strengthens the resolve to decisively and justly punish the perpetrators.”
The Guards commander in the southeastern city of Kerman denied state media reports of a shooting in Kerman on Thursday.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi condemned the “heinous and inhumane crime”, and Iran’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, vowed revenge for the twin bombings.
Iran’s Red Crescent rescuers tended to wounded people at the ceremony, where hundreds of Iranians had gathered to mark the anniversary of Soleimani’s killing. Some Iranian news agencies said the number of wounded was much higher.
Editor Oloyede Oworu
