Ebrahim Raisi, the president of Iran, declared on Friday that a “Zionist grudge” drove the Sunni jihadist terror group the Islamic State to bomb a memorial event for Iranian terror chief Qasem Soleimani on January 3.
An estimated 89 people died and another 289 were injured on Wednesday at a mass event in Kerman, Iran, marking the anniversary of an American drone strike eliminating Soleimani, the former head of the Quds Force, a special terrorist operations unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and an arm of the Iranian armed forces. As the head of the Quds Force, Soleimani was responsible for pivotal shadow diplomacy between Iran and its various terrorist proxies around the world and for aiding operations to kill and injure American troops in Iraq and Syria, among other locations around the world.
President Donald Trump ordered an airstrike against Soleimani and the head of the Hezbollah Brigades, a terrorist militia in Iraq tied to Iran, on January 3, 2020. Iran marks the date as a national day of mourning, mandating assemblies featuring thousands of people to honor the slain terrorist.
Two bombs, detonating about ten minutes apart, disrupted the Soleimani anniversary event in Kerman on Wednesday, killing attendees and first responders. The Islamic State (ISIS) took responsibility for the bombing on Thursday, claiming its suicide bombers had executed the plot. Like the IRGC, ISIS is a jihadist terrorist organization, but as Iran’s government is Shiite and ISIS is a Sunni entity, the groups have long been at odds despite their shared distaste for America, Israel, and non-Muslims generally. The Iranian government refers to ISIS as a “takfiri” group, meaning that they are enemies of Muslims and therefore illegitimate Muslims.
Despite the Islamic State’s consistent and violent declarations of disgust for America and Israel, Raisi claimed in his remarks at a mass funeral for the victims of the bombing on Friday that “Zionist” sentiments drove ISIS to commit the attack. He also claimed that the Islamic State was an American proxy force.
“Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi says the cause of the terrorist bombings in Kerman can be traced back to the grudge that Zionists hold against top anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani,” the Iranian state-run outlet PressTV reported, “as he jeopardized the plans to establish another Israel in the region by creating and backing Daesh terrorist group.”
“The enemy wanted the puppet group of Daesh [ISIS] to rule in Iraq and Syria under the name of Islamic Caliphate,” Raisi was quoted as saying. The “enemy” in question is “the Israeli regime” and the United States.
“Qassem Soleimani and the regional forces thwarted the US plan to create another Israel in the region … this is why the Zionist regime is holding [a] grudge against the name, path, and pilgrims of Haj Qassem,” he continued.
In reality, Qasem Soleimani did little in the fight against the Islamic State “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. Soleimani’s operations in Syria were largely meant to support dictator Bashar al-Assad, who also abstained from direct confrontation with ISIS. In Iraq, Soleimani aided the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a coalition of mostly Iran-backed Shiite militias, in amassing power as Kurdish and American forces fought the Islamic State in Mosul.
The “evidence” Raisi presented for the Islamic State bombing being a secret “Zionist” plot was a quote by former President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign in which he called his predecessor Barack Obama the “founder of ISIS.”
“The US role in the establishment of Daesh terrorist group has also been highlighted by some American politicians, both Democratic and Republican,” Raisi said, according to PressTV.
Trump’s remarks at the time blamed President Obama’s poorly planned withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and mismanagement of America’s role in the Syrian Civil War for creating the vacuum responsible for allowing the Islamic State to thrive.
“He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that — that was the founding of ISIS, okay?” Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt. “Everyone’s liking it. I think they’re liking it. I give him the most valuable player award. And I give it to him, and I give it to, I gave the co-founder to Hillary [Clinton].”
Trump greenlit the operation that resulted in the elimination of the leader and “caliph” of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, from the battlefield in 2019. Neither Soleimani nor Iran played any role in that operation.
Raisi was not the only official to attempt to reinterpret an Islamic State terrorist attack as an American and Israeli action. The head of the IRGC, Major General Hossein Salami, called the Islamic State terrorists “agents and mercenaries of America and Zionism” in his remarks at the same funeral event.
“They can only act as agents and mercenaries of America and Zionism,” he reportedly said. “But we give them this warning; if you are brave enough, fight us, why are you killing defenseless women and children?”
Salami later confusingly insisted that the Islamic State had “vanished and there is no trace of them on the political map of the world,” despite the group taking responsibility for the bombing. Islamic State terrorists have in the past taken responsibility for terrorist attacks later found not to be linked to their activities, but the Iranian government has not presented any evidence contradicting the ISIS claim at press time.
Iranian police arrested an unknown “number of suspects” as of Friday linked to planning the terrorist attack. A statement attributed to the Islamic State posted on the encrypted messaging application Telegram claimed that the explosions were detonated by suicide bombers, implying that the terrorists directly responsible for the attack were dead. Iranian authorities have not issued any public information suggesting it has found the bodies of suicide bombers or identifying any suspects.