32 suspects arrested over Kerman attack: Prosecutor
All individuals suspected to be involved in the recent terrorist attack in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman have been arrested, said the city’s prosecutor Mehdi Bakhshi.
“Thirty-two people have been arrested in connection with the Kerman crime case and are going through preliminary interrogations,” Bakhshi said during a televised interview on Saturday, three days after the terrorist attack, Press TV reported.
The judicial official added that before the terrorist attack, as many as “16 bombs were discovered throughout Kerman Province” whose explosive power was more than the suicide vests used in the Wednesday bombings.
The twin bombings, which were claimed by the Daesh terrorist group, were carried out near the burial site of Iran’s late anti-terror commander Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani during a ceremony marking the fourth anniversary of his martyrdom. The blasts left 91 people, including 14 Afghans, dead and 286 others wounded, some of them in critical condition.
Bakhshi dismissed rumors that the explosives used during the attack were placed in trash cans and were remotely detonated, saying both bomb blasts were conducted by suicide bombers, one of whom was from Tajikistan.
Emphasizing that terrorists were not able to plant any explosives inside the cemetery where martyrs are buried, the prosecutor said, “Over the recent months, as many as 23 Daesh terrorists ready to carry out suicide attacks have been arrested across Kerman Province.”
The prosecutor noted that the province had to deal with a high number of threats during this year’s martyrdom anniversary of General Soleimani, amid reports about potential terror attacks by Daesh and the anti-Iranian Mujahedin-e-Khalq terrorist cult.
“Therefore, the entire province was mobilized” to counter any possible threats, he said.
The Kerman’s terrorist attack was the focus of talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his French counterpart Catherine Colonna on Saturday.
During a phone conversation, Amir-Abdollahian called for more efforts by the international community to counter terrorism in all its forms.
Iran’s top diplomat highlighted the need for more efforts by the international community to counter all forms of terrorism in a more effective and practical manner.
For her part, the French foreign minister reiterated Paris’s condemnation of the terrorist attack in Kerman.
Voicing concern over the escalation of tensions across the Middle East region due to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, she also urged Iran to play its role in preventing further expansion of the regional conflicts.