More than 100 dead, 170 injured in blasts at ceremony honouring Iranian general

No group immediately claimed responsibility for what Iranian state media called a “terroristic” attack shortly after the explosions in Kerman, about 510 miles (820km) south-east of the capital, Tehran.

The blasts struck an event marking the fourth anniversary of the killing of General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force, in a US drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.

Two explosions minutes apart at a commemoration in Iran for a prominent general who died in a US drone strike in 2020 killed at least 103 people and injured more than 170 others on Wednesday.

The blasts came as the Middle East remains on edge over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.