Anyone who wants to strike at the heart of the Iranian regime would be hard-pressed for a more symbolic target than the memorial site for Qasem Soleimani, the senior commander who was assassinated by the United States four years ago. The memorial represents everything that the Tehran regime stands for. That’s why the bomb attacks today, reported to have killed more than 100 people and injuring scores more, will have dealt a significant blow to a regime that relies on projecting an image of total control.
Tehran blamed ‘terrorist attacks’ for the two explosions in the southern city of Kerman. The blasts hit crowds gathering to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the killing of Soleimani. Initial eyewitness reports said there were two explosions ten minutes apart. Other unconfirmed reports initially suggested as many as four explosions. The details matter because a series of carefully-timed explosions would suggest a well-coordinated and sophisticated attack – a plot on this scale is extremely difficult to carry out in a country where opposition of any kind is ruthlessly crushed by the all-powerful security forces.
Soleimani is buried in the Garden of Martyrs cemetery in Kerman, alongside more than 1,000 others the regime denotes as those who gave their lives up for their country. His burial place is a place of pilgrimage for all those who align with the regime’s official ideology of hatred for the America and the West. Soleimani was killed in an American drone strike in Baghdad in 2020: he was designated a terrorist by the United States and held responsible for directing the activities of militant groups across the Middle East. His killing inevitably caused further diplomatic rifts between the United States and Iran.
The blasts could not have happened at a more dangerous and unstable moment
It is still not clear who is behind the attack, and Tehran has not yet officially blamed a specific group or country. The regime has plenty of enemies, internally and externally. It has blamed previous attacks on militant groups as well as Sunni extremist groups. The other target for blame will be the Israelis. Only yesterday, Israel carried out the assassination of a senior Hamas leader in Lebanon. Just over a week ago, on Christmas Day, an Israeli airstrike reportedly killed a senior commander belonging to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps ( IRGC). Israel has also carried out targeted assassinations of scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear programme including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a leading researcher in 2020.
The blasts could not have happened at a more dangerous and unstable moment for the mullahs who have ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. They are facing ongoing protests sparked by the death at the hands of the security police of Mahsa Amini, for breaking Iran’s strict morality code. The regime has moved quickly and brutally to crush the mass protest movement, organised and led by women, in the wake of her killing. More recently, Tehran has resorted to stepping up its use of the death penalty against political opponents and other dissidents. The aim is to send a chilling message to ordinary Iranians that unrest and demands for political freedom and basic rights will be met with maximum force.
Beyond its borders, Iran faces many problems sparked by the Hamas’s 7 October attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. Iran has repeatedly claimed that it does not want to be drawn into a wider regional conflict despite its ongoing support for Hamas. Even so, Iran’s proxy in Yemen, the Houthis, have been firing missiles at commercial shipping and naval vessels for several weeks now. The dangers of a broader war, involving Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria, breaking out in the Middle East remain are all too real.
The bomb attack on the Soleimani memorial represents an embarrassing security lapse for a regime that prides itself on being all-seeing and all-knowing. The mullahs, when rattled, are at their most dangerous and unpredictable. It is a worrying thought and the wider consequences are dangerously unpredictable.
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