IS jihadists claim Iran suicide bombings that killed 84
TEHRAN—The Islamic State jihadist group said Thursday that it carried out twin bombings which killed at least 84 people at a memorial ceremony in Iran for slain Revolutionary Guards general Qasem Soleimani.
The claim from IS came as Iran observed a day of national mourning for those killed in Wednesday’s blasts.
In a statement on Telegram, IS said two of its members “activated their explosives vests” among the crowds who had come to honor Soleimani on the anniversary of his death in a targeted US drone strike in Baghdad four years ago.
Iranian investigators had already confirmed that the first blast at least was the work of a “suicide bomber” and believed the trigger for the second was “very probably another suicide bomber,” the official IRNA news agency reported earlier, citing an “informed source.”
Security Council
The Security Council condemned the twin bombings as a “cowardly terrorist attack” and urged all UN member states “to cooperate actively” with Iran in holding its “perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors” accountable.
Soleimani was a staunch enemy of IS, a Sunni extremist group which has carried out previous attacks in majority-Shiite Iran. —AFP
