At least 50 people were killed in a cemetery in Iran where ceremonies were held to commemorate the 2020 assassination of Iranian Supreme Commander Qasem Soleimani, an official told Reuters news agency.
Official media reports added that two explosions occurred at the site in the city of Kerman where the former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was buried.
Hundreds of people gathered at the site, killing 25 people and wounding 40 others, IRNA reported.
State media reported that an Iranian official described the explosions as “terrorist attacks.”
It comes after one day Deputy leader of Hamas, Saleh Al-Arouri, died in an explosion in Beirut.
Soleimani, who was previously Iran's top military general, was assassinated in a US drone strike during a visit to Iraq in 2020 to meet with then-Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi.
The drone strike caused a major diplomatic crisis between the United States and Iran, leading to retaliatory missile strikes against US military sites in Iraq and pushing the two countries to the brink of war.
More than a million people took to the streets for the funeral, leading to a stampede in which 56 mourners were killed.
After serving in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Soleimani became one of the country's top commanders, often described as the second most powerful figure in Iran, behind Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
He was the commander of the Quds Force, a division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard responsible for espionage and military operations outside Iran.
Soleimani was considered the mastermind of Iranian military operations in Iraq and Syria.
He was also seen as influential in the development of the so-called “axis of resistance” – which Western officials classify as the “axis of evil.”
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