Iran blasts that killed nearly 100 add to Mideast tensions

Iran said attacks that killed almost 100 people in the central part of the country were carried out to punish its stance against Israel, the latest sign that the war between the Jewish state and Hamas risks widening into a broader regional conflict.

The blasts near the grave of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani left 95 people dead and 211 others injured on Wednesday, Iran’s health minister told state television in a revised count of casualties.

The killing of Soleimani was a U.S. response to an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and was based on intelligence that Soleimani was planning further attacks on U.S. diplomats and service members.

Soleimani was designated as a terrorist by the United States in 2011.

Soleimani was the head of Iran’s terrorist Quds Force and the architect of the country’s terrorist proxies from Afghanistan to Yemen, including Hezbollah and Hamas.

Iran has long vowed to destroy Israel.

The attacks in Iran came a day after Israel was believed to be behind the killing of a key leader of the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.

Although Iran cited its opposition to Israel as the motive for the graveyard attack, U.S. State Department spokesman Matt Miller said “we have no reason to believe that Israel was involved in this explosion.” He added that “the United States was not involved in any way, and any suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous.”

The initial U.S. supposition is that Islamic State or a related group was responsible, according to two people familiar with the U.S. government’s analysis. Israel’s foreign ministry said it had no comment on the blasts.

The attacks over the past 24 hours marked a new peak in regional tensions since Israel began its war against Hamas after the group — designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union — infiltrated Israel on Oct. 7 and killed about 1,200 people.

Since the conflict began, Houthis — an Iranian proxy force in Yemen — have fired missiles and drones against commercial ships in the Red Sea, while Hezbollah has launched attacks against Israel from its bases in Lebanon.

Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahdi said in televised remarks that Wednesday’s explosions in the central province of Kerman “responded to the blow from the axis of resistance by killing innocent women and children.” Iran refers to armed anti-Israel groups and militia in the region, including in Iraq and Syria, as the axis of resistance. Vahdi didn’t put the blame on a specific nation or group.

Car bomb

Wednesday’s explosions took place within 15 minutes of each other outside the graveyard where a crowd of people participated in a ceremony to commemorate the death of Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq’s capital in 2020.

The blasts were caused by bombs planted in a suitcase and a car near the graveyard entrance and detonated remotely, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

The head of Iran’s judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, vowed to punish the perpetrators, without saying who might be responsible.

Regional escalation

Soleimani’s death in 2020 led to fears of a direct military confrontation between Iran and the U.S., and in the aftermath Iran mistakenly shot down a passenger plane. Tehran continues to vow to avenge Soleimani’s death.

As the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds force, Soleimani was one of Iran’s most powerful generals. He helped project Iranian power abroad through a network of proxy militias opposed to Israel including Hezbollah and Hamas.

Last week, Iran accused Israel of killing another senior IRGC officer — and Soleimani’s former colleague — Seyyed Razi Mousavi, in Syria.

In Turkey, the secret service arrested 33 people on Tuesday, saying they were spying on Palestinians on behalf of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

The chief of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, said at a funeral Wednesday that it would “settle accounts” with those who planned and participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, without elaborating. Iran denies involvement in the assaults.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday that his group has been acting with restraint but if Israel wants war with Lebanon, his group will fight “without ceilings, limits, rules or controls.”

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Bloomberg staff writer Alisa Odenheimer contributed to this story.