US intelligence named the force behind it, Tehran arrested 11 suspects

The self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for the bombing in Kerman, southeastern Iran.

Khủng bố đẫm máu ở Iran: Quốc tế lên tiếng, Tehran tuyên bố sẽ trừng phạt xứng đáng, Nga không khoan nhượng. (nguồn: AP)

Scene of the bloody bombing in Iran, January 3. (Source: AP)

On January 5, two sources close to US intelligence revealed that communications collected by Washington showed that the terrorist group Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), an IS branch in Afghanistan, carried out two consecutive bombings in Iran, killing nearly 100 people.

“The intelligence is clear and undeniable,” a source stressed, adding that the US had a good idea that IS-K had carried out the attack.

Both sources confirmed that the intelligence gathered by the US included communications intercepts, but did not disclose further.

Previously, on January 4, IS admitted that two members of this group wearing suicide vests carried out the attack during the memorial ceremony for General Qassem Soleimani - a senior military commander of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who was assassinated in Iraq in a US drone strike in January 2020.

However, IS did not specifically name IS-K as the group that carried out the bombing in the city of Kerman, southeastern Iran this time.

In another development, the Iranian government announced on January 5 that the country's security forces had arrested 11 suspects involved in the two bombings at the memorial service for General Qassem Soleimani.

Security forces have arrested two people for assisting the two suicide bombers in Kerman and nine others in other parts of the country suspected of involvement in the incident, the deadliest attacks in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to the Iranian Intelligence Ministry.

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