IRAN TWIN BLASTS: ISLAMIC STATE SAYS TWO OF ITS MEMBERS “ACTIVATED THEIR EXPLOSIVES VESTS”

Tehran’s official news agency IRNA quoted Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi as saying that “according to forensic statistics, the number of martyrs from this incident has been announced as 84 so far”. 

Jafar Miadfar, who is the head of Iran’s emergency services, also confirmed the revised toll as he said that the earlier tally was due to the fact that some bodies had been dismembered and counted “several times”. 

The explosions took place on the anniversary of Soleimani’s killing in a US drone strike in Iraq in 2020 as hundreds of people were gathered to mark the occasion. 

Iran-based Tasnim news agency reported that the first blast happened at 15:04 pm (local time) when people were packed on a road leading to a cemetery where the tomb of Soleimani is located. The second blast occurred around 13 minutes later. 

Soleimani was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He was the commander of the Quds Force, which is an IRGC division primarily responsible for extraterritorial and clandestine military operations, from 1998 until his death. He was killed in a US drone strike just outside Baghdad airport.