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LAST UPDATE | 3 Jan 2024
TWIN BOMB BLASTS killed at least 103 people in Iran today, ripping through a crowd commemorating Revolutionary Guards general Qasem Soleimani four years after his death in a US strike, state media reported.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed “evil and criminal enemies” of the country for the attack and vowed a “harsh response.”
The two explosions – labelled a “terrorist attack” by state media and regional authorities – came amid high Middle East tensions over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the killing of a Hamas senior leader in Lebanon on Tuesday.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemns” the unclaimed attacks.
Mohammad Jamshidi, a senior advisor to Iran’s president, blamed Israel and the United States, while the US said it looks like past attacks by ISIS.
“It does look like a terrorist attack, the kind of thing ISIS has done in the past, and that’s our ongoing assumption at the moment,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters.
The blasts, about 15 minutes apart, struck near the Martyrs Cemetery at the Saheb al-Zaman Mosque in Kerman, Soleimani’s southern hometown, as supporters gathered to mark his killing in a 2020 US drone strike in Baghdad.
Official IRNA news agency said the number of dead rose to 103 while state television reported 211 wounded, some in critical condition.
Three paramedics who rushed to the scene after the first explosion were among those killed, said Iran’s Red Crescent.
IRNA said the first explosion took place around 700 metres from Soleimani’s grave while the other was around one kilometre away.
President Ebrahim Raisi condemned the “heinous” crime as the Islamic Republic of Iran declared Thursday a national day of mourning.
Tasnim news agency, quoting what it called informed sources, said “two bags carrying bombs went off” and “the perpetrators… apparently detonated the bombs by remote control”.
Online footage showed panicked crowds scrambling to flee as security personnel cordoned off the area.
State television showed bloodied victims lying on the ground and ambulances and rescue personnel racing to help them.
“We were walking towards the cemetery when a car suddenly stopped behind us and a waste bin containing a bomb exploded,” an eyewitness was quoted saying by the ISNA news agency.
“We only heard the explosion and saw people falling.”
By nightfall, crowds returned back the Martyrs Cemetery in Kerman chanting: “Death to Israel” and “Death to America”.
In Tehran, thousands gathered at the Grand Mosalla Mosque to pay tribute to Soleimani.
“We condemn today’s bitter terrorist incident… I hope the perpetrators of the crime will be identified and punished for their actions,” Soleimani’s daughter, Zeinab, said.
Soleimani headed the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, overseeing military operations across the Middle East.
The twin blasts were denounced by the European Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Irad and Jordan.
“The EU condemns in the strongest terms today’s bombing… This act of terror has exacted a shocking toll of civilian deaths and injuries,” an EU statement said.
“The killing of peaceful people visiting the cemetery is shocking in its cruelty and cynicism,” Putin wrote to Raisi and Khamenei.
Iraq – where some 3,000 people gathered in Baghdad Tuesday to commemorate Soleimani – said it was ready to help “to alleviate the impact of this cowardly criminal act”.
The blasts came a day after Hamas number two Saleh al-Aruri — an Iran ally — was killed in a strike, which Lebanese officials blamed on Israel, on a southern Beirut suburb that is a stronghold of Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.
Wednesday’s bomb blasts were Iran’s deadliest since a 1978 arson Cinema Rex attack in the southwestern city of Abadan, which killed at least 377 people, according to AFP archives.
Iran has long fought a shadow war of killings and sabotage with arch enemy Israel and also battled various jihadist and other militant groups.
In September, the Fars news agency reported that a key “operative” affiliated with the Islamic State group, in charge of carrying out “terrorist operations” in Iran, had been arrested in Kerman.
In July, Iran’s intelligence ministry said it had disbanded a network “linked to Israel’s spy organisation” which had been plotting “terrorist operations” across Iran, IRNA reported.
The alleged plots included “planning an explosion at the grave” of Soleimani, it said.
Soleimani, whom Khamenei years ago declared a “living martyr”, was widely regarded as a hero in Iran for his role in defeating IS in both Iraq and Syria.
Long seen as a deadly adversary by the United States and its allies, Soleimani was one of the most important powerbrokers across the region, setting Iran’s political and military agenda in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
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Houses don’t disappear when they are repossessed. They can be sold on or rented to someone who will pay. Conflating this with homelessness is nonsense. The lawyers are making our like bandits as usual because the judges think they make the law instead of enforcing it
@Goban Saor: Actually, Judges interpret the law. Gardaí, and other bodies who have been given power by the legislature, enforce it. (eg, Director of Corporate Enforcement, Environmental Protection Agency, DCC Clampers, Dublin Bus ticket inspectors, litter wardens etc…)
@Goban Saor: better a pedantic plonker than a raving fool.
TD’s should take heed, especially those currently in power who have had years to sort this out but delivered nothing. NAMA has to go, it is an abject failure which has enabled the vultures rather than assisted the citizens of the state. Hindsight is great when looking for reasons on who to blame, it is our current FFG led government who had no foresight and know find themselves in a situation where over 10,ooo people are homeless.
@Ian McNally: Neither are all the County registrars who pretend and act like they are Judges when issuing possession orders. Then the self same person goes and acts on the possession order he just issued, but this time acting as sheriff. Seems like a fixed system methinks.
It’s a bit late now! Gombeen TDs throwing shapes, looking to be seen to be doing something instead of actually doing something.
Where were these “great” fellas during the last few years when the vulture funds were actually repossessing people’s homes!
@Adrian: Remember the Cork minister whose Daddy was also a minister before him who made a promise on national radio last year that he would deliver 900 affordable housing units and only 9 were built? Or the Galway councillor who got his grubby hands on an affordable home and is now renting that same home to enrich himself? Now they are pretending to care because a general election is on the horizon, lying thieves.
@Adrian: So folks who couldn’t be arsed paying their mortgages shouldn’t have their property repossessed?
@Frank Cauldhame: like Dippity Dooley, he’s never seen in the dail, but if some controversary comes up about Clare, he takes over Martin’s seat in the dail chamber and I can never remember what he says because it’s s#!t talk, but his gestures and waving arms all over the place and his throwing shapes I remember because it’s something to behold!
@MK76: yeah just like the banks who couldn’t be arsed paying there debts .. get the people to pay it ..
@Adrian: They blame people who are struggling and struggled to pay their mortgages instead of looking at the picture as a whole, like its mortgage holders who caused the crash of the elitist bank Anglo and the bailout that was forced upon innocent Irish citizens to keep bondholders happy.
@Adrian: vulture funds are friends of our government since old graveyard face Noonan. Nothing will change,nothing.
@Adrian: It’s never too late to stop a crises, excuses like that would make you a great politician. Id sort it but sure it’s too late, no point.
Thank you John but you are 8 years late with your bill. The horse has bolted with Noonan on its back.
@Gareth Cooney: Not really, barely any repossessions yet which is what is causing a huge bottleneck and bubble in Ireland.
Needs to be sorted asap so the market can be managed more fairly.. Move out if you cant pay. Hearing that some mortgages not paid for over 2 years…shocking…what are people doing
@Darren Norris: the lack of repossesions in Ireland / even in cases where the mortgage is totally unsustainable is another factor in foreign banks NOT opening in Ireland thereby keeping the variable rates charged on mortgages in Ireland artificially high.We pay roughly double the variable rates of most European countries
@Darren Norris:
Saving lots of lovely money!
@Frank Dubogovik: What you said is not the reason Ireland pays higher interest rates. It is a false meme spread by the banks and our govt, and too many people in this country have fallen for this big lie. The reason the Irish banks charge more than the European rate is because Irish banks are attaching a premium to compensate for loss-making tracker mortgages. If you have a Tracker, the banks sees your mortgage as an NPL, even if you have never missed a payment. But the banks don’t want to say this is the reason for charging the higher interest rates. It is easier for them to spread the big lie that it is all the fault of distressed mortgages. This way, they get everyone to turn on each other instead of putting their anger where it should be; with the banks who are pissed off thag they are making the profit they think they are entitled to because of trackers. And people like you fall for it every time. Based on your logic, we should all be blaming people who jave tracker mortgages. Grow up.
thag they are making = that they are not making the profit
@Ron O’Keefe: Well said, that is the truth. On another note what ever happened to the Anglo subsidiary that was sold to a private Swiss family?
@Ron O’Keefe: you’re right. That is one reason. But if the market was free and banks could repossess homes then foreign banks would enter the market and undercut the Irish banks. Irish banks would then cut their rates or go out of business. If they went out of business then people would be moaning that vulture funds/foreign banks owned the mortgages.
@joe: ‘go out of business’ – yeah right – cos that’s what happened in 2008 right…
These guys play by different rules.
Anyway, the attitude of wishing to see thousands turfed out of their homes by the very architects of the disaster just so you MIGHT save a few sheckles on your interest payments speaks volumes.
@joe: It isn’t one reason. It is THE reason. Banks repossessing or not repossessing have nothing to do with it. There isn’t a free market here with more competition because this is how the Irish banks want it. As for the distressed mortgages you say they can’t repossess; the banks were already subsidised for every one of these mortgages when everyone one of us in this country bailed them out. The banks are out nothing. Why do you think they have been sitting on these houses all these years?
More nonsense from Ed the Head the Ball. The clown isn’t elected by anyone and shows blatent disregard for the law.
The people who will benefit most from this are chancers who won’t pay their mortgages. Pack up and move, it’s what the renters have to do when they cannot pay
@Goban Saor:Nearly a decade later & you’re still harping on about this …Homeowners have spent 100′s of thousands of pounds on their properties.They also could be left with a huge debt after they’re evicted from that property…What have renters spent on the property that they’re living in ? Does the banks hound them afterwards ?
@Francis Mc Carthy: nearly a decade later values have recovered and people who bought at the peak and kept paying their mortgages are mostly out of negative equity. Still there are a few die hards who think the world owes them a free house ( and not a council house – in a middle class area, thank you very much)
@Goban Saor: You really have no idea what you are talking about. And if you think the banks are giving people free houses just because their mortgages are distressed, you are clueless.
@Goban Saor: Why are you telling me this ? I just responded to you whining about renters and how “tough” it is on them….
@Francis Mc Carthy: You got it all wrong. You are not a homeowner and you are not spending on your property if you are paying a mortgage. Simple.
‘they can go down the “tired old political route that is stale and out of date” and make excuses, or they can get involved with the legislation’…. Irish politicians? I’ll believe it when I see it!
@Sarah Bourke:
Summer holidays coming up make it look good, They don’t want it in the neck from us the great unwashed TAXPAYER.
Sadly cowardly TD’S Will duck and dive, especially FG one’s, the party of drop kick every problem into someone else’s court. The master of the high court is to genuinely commended, he actually seems to be the only person in the entire legal system who cares like etc alone what is going on because of this governments actions.
Fair play to Mr Honohan and Deputy McGuinness for make this effort to address this terrible crisis. At least it will put a lot of TD’s on the spot to see what they will do.
Maybe Sean Gallagher will look for support from the County Councils for it, as well as for his other urgent problems.
A judge doesn’t have knowledge of economics because he knows the law. It is very simple somebody ends up paying when houses aren’t repossessed. Generally it will be the banks and that is why we have such high mortgage charges here. Make it more difficult and charges go up again.
@Kal Ipers: He’s not a judge. He’s master of the high court. Now then, who were we accusing of having no knowledge?
@Matt Connolly: My point remains and I am not writing a document on the judicial system and the roles of people within it so irrelevant I misnamed his title.
@Kal Ipers: kinda like not letting facts get in the way of a good story, right? ;)
@Matt Connolly: nothing like it. It really doesn’t matter
@Kal Ipers: The reason you gave for why Irish banks charge higher mortgage interest rates is a complete lie spread by people like yourself who a) perpetuate this lie because of your own agenda or b) you are just dumb enough to believe this lie.
And in case you forgot, the banks were already subsidised for these distressed mortgages when we bailed them out. The banks are out nothing; not one penny. The banks are double dipping.
@Ron O’Keefe: You got this somehow wrong. I agreed that troubles with repossessions are not the only reason the rates are high in Ireland. Trackers are the culprits too. But why Banks charging such high interests? Because they can – that’s a market for you. And why they can? Because there is no real competition in Ireland. And why is that? Because the foreign banks are reluctant to do mortgage business here because of the difficulties with repossessions. Nobody will risk a business in the environment where it is so difficult to get your money back.
@astjan: Firstly, these potential repossessions everyone is so freaked out over are very few. Secondly the reason for the difficulty is because these mortgages have already been subsidised by us when we bailed them out. And most of these distressed mortgages are being paid on. The banks are trying to double dip by reposssing. Not having foreign banks in this country as competition is of the Irish banks own purposeful making. They don’t want the competition.
As for your because “they can” analysis, where is the EU? These things are supposed to be regulated. But as usual, everyone cherry picks.
You are just wrong on your repossession theory.
@Ron O’Keefe: very few? Go and visit the courts around the country, do some research over the last year or so…. your having a laugh!
Why are mortgage rates so high? Because there’s SFA competition in the Irish mortgage market. Does anyone think there will be new entrants when a bank cannot get it’s money back by repossessing a property? Cynical fools. Supply, supply, supply is what is needed in Ireland
@Goban Saor: Try to get this thru your head; mortgage interest rates have nothing to do with repossessions. The banks were already subsidised for these distressed mortgages when we all bailed them out during the recession. The banks are out nothing. They have lost nothing. This is why the banks sat on them all these years. They were waiting for the housing market to recover so they could make even more money off of something they have already been paid for, by the people of this country.
@Ron O’Keefe: well said: so tired of these commentators who have no clue as to what the banks are at.
General election scpeake.
The banks did absolutely nothing at the start of the crisis because the value of property was on the floor and they would never recuperate their ‘losses’. Roll on a few years and government policy means that the good days for the banks are back. Noonan was the right man for the job. About to retire so that his re-election wasn’t a problem. I’ll never forget his ‘sew up yer pockets, lads’ comment. Utterly vile.
Any vulture funds donating to political parties? Below the threshold with multiple shell companies ? Any vulture funds investing in companies linked to any public figures ? Any public contracts with no work done ? Northern vulture fund story disappeared fairly lively. Remember there is tax to be paid and ‘tax’ to be paid . A great country to do ‘business ‘.
Must be an election on the way ,big fan of john mc guinness but its getting a bit late in the day to expect miricles ,however saying that any discussion is welcome on the subject .interested to hear what some of our TDs are thinking or hiding
You can be sure the parties in the left won’t engage as this new bill appears to be positive. The left will always swing to the negative.
@Me Darlin’ Dublin: Let’s see how the rest of FF vote &FG!Yes,basis of Bill seems very sensible and positive,let’s see the detail now!
@Nuala Mc Namara: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/bills/bill/2018/77/
Today In the dail bar,, ” I’ll come out in favour you come out against lol” they haven’t a clue what’s going on, do ye want another pint theyre paying lol
We live in a quite Country there applauding this man in the Dail as he try’s to stop Vulture Funds from literally taking peoples home for next nothing and across the road in the Courts they are letting the Bank officials that had a big part to play in bringing this Country to its knees are walking free with their big pensions and a little tap on the wrist .This would not be tolerated in any other Country in the world.
Some details rather than soundbites would be nice.
Say no to the taxpayer supporting people who dont think they should pay for their home.
I think there is something wrong in this country when I pay more tax than a vulture fund. I think there is something wrong when 9 billion that was put aside to help out distressed mortgage holders cannot be accounted for. I think there’s something wrong when these funds buy mortgages at a discount of 70%.
Loads of people on here saying if you don’t pay then be evicted, great idea lads, let’s add to the 4k kids currently homeless!
Government needs to call this a national emergency. Instruct the state owned banks to sell to the councils at the same rate as the VF’s and make the VF’S pay a proper rate of tax on their profits. They are contributing to the problem so the least they can do is pay a decent amount of tax!
Must be an election on the horizon
I’d be interested to hear the Bill debated in the Dail.
I’m not a FF voters but respect John Mc Guineas& Master of the High Court.
YES
Absolutely stupid idea. If people don’t pay their mortgage they should be evicted!
@joe: You really don’t get what is going on. People like yourself need to get a grip on exactly what the banks are doing.
A nation once again.
10,000 mortgages with 5 years arrears that’s the problem that needs to be tackled the hand full of repossessions where abandoned or keys handed back
If you can’t afford your mortgage then you need to sell up to someone who can.
If you can’t afford your car you lose it.
Anyone have a link to where we can read the bill?
@Mark McDermott: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/bills/bill/2018/77/
People don’t disappear when they’re made homeless. The state is still obliged to find shelter for them.
have your say