Iran says 2 explosions have killed over 100 people honoring an assassinated general

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."At a briefing Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said it was too early to say who or what might have caused the blasts, but he stressed, "The United States was not involved in any way, and any suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous."

He also said, "We have no information to believe that Israel was involved in this explosion."

A senior administration official, asked if the U.S. had assessed who's responsible for the Iran bombing, told reporters, "It does look like a terrorist attack, the type of thing we've seen ISIS do in the past."

Soleimani was the architect of Iran's regional military activities and is hailed as a national icon among supporters of Iran's theocracy. He also helped secure Syrian President Bashar Assad's government after the 2011 Arab Spring protests against him turned into a civil, and later a regional, war that still rages today.

Relatively unknown in Iran until the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Soleimani's popularity and mystique grew after American officials called for his killing over his help arming militants with penetrating roadside bombs that killed and maimed U.S. troops.

A decade and a half later, Soleimani had become Iran's most recognizable battlefield commander, ignoring calls to enter politics but growing as powerful, if not more, than its civilian leadership.

Ultimately, a drone strike launched by the Trump administration killed the general, part of escalating incidents that followed America's 2018 unilateral withdrawal from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers.

Soleimani's death has drawn large processions in the past. At his funeral in 2020, a stampede broke out in Kerman and at least 56 people were killed and more than 200 were injured as thousands thronged the procession. Otherwise, Kerman largely has been untouched in the recent unrest and attacks that have struck Iran. The city and province of the same name sits in Iran's central desert plateau."...

"Editor's note: This story has been updated after the death toll was revised down to 84 by Iranian authorities."