The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the fatal twin bombings near the burial site of murdered military commander Qasem Soleimani in southern Iran on Wednesday, according to the terror monitoring group SITE and al-Arabiya.
The jihadist group released a statement in which it stated that two suicide bombers had set off their explosive vests when Shiite mourners gathered near Soleimani’s tomb in Kerman, his hometown, to commemorate the fourth anniversary of his killing.
According to state-run news agency IRNA, the explosions on Wednesday resulted in at least 84 fatalities and 284 injuries, making it the worst strike on Iranian soil since the 1979 revolution.
Prior to Thursday’s statement, Iran’s First Vice President, Mohammad Mokhber, had pointed the finger at Israel, claiming that “the representatives of the Zionist regime” had spilled blood against its main regional rival. However, the accusation had been deemed unfounded by the United States, which had already speculated in the hours following the attack that it might be Sunni terrorism.
Iran promised retaliation for the bombings, which President Ebrahim Raisi called a “heinous and inhumane crime.”
The organization has been mostly wiped out by years of bombings by a U.S.-led coalition, but the blast in Iran raised the possibility of a violent comeback. The Islamic State, a Sunni Islamist group, has long fought Iran, most recently for allegedly manipulating the Israel-Hamas conflict and the Gaza crisis.
