Islamic State, the Sunni militant group,  claimed responsibility on January 4 for two explosions that killed nearly 100 people and wounded scores at a ceremony in Kerman in Iran to commemorate commander Qassem Soleimani, who himself was killed by a US drone in 2020.

The group posted a statement on its affiliate Telegram channels saying two of its members had detonated their explosive belts in the crowd. Tehran has previously vowed a severe response to the perpetrator of the blasts.

The claim of responsibility came after many speculated in Iran that Israel might have been behind the attack, though experts argued the blasts did not bear the typical hallmarks of Israeli operations. If Israel had been involved, Iranian retaliation could have led to a wider confrontation with the US, a risk that is still present.

US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said at a press briefing that the US does not “have any independent information” about the explosions, and that the State Department has “no reason to believe that Israel was involved”.

“I do want to address some of the irresponsible claims that I have seen circulate and say that, number one, the United States was not involved in any way, and any suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous; and number two, we have no reason to believe that Israel was involved in this explosion,” he said at a press briefing on January 4.

The Islamic State had also claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack that occurred on October 26, 2022 at Shah Cheragh mosque, a Shia pilgrimage site in Shiraz in southern Iran, in which at least 13 people were killed. On July 8, 2023 two men were executed for their involvement in the attack.

Tensions have been running high in the Middle East following the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 by the Iran-backed Hamas movement in Palestine. Tel Aviv has declared war on Hamas with military strikes on Gaza.

Meanwhile Iran’s proxies in the region, known as the ‘axis of resistance’, have been drawn into the spreading war by launching attacks that have been reciprocated by Israel, which has the strong backing of the United States. Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” includes Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and Hamas in Gaza.

Israel and the US have been launching attacks on these proxies to punish them for attacks on Israel and Western forces, and to deter further attacks.

On December 25 a top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander was killed in an Israeli air strike in Syria, prompting Tehran to threaten that Israeli will “certainly pay” for its actions.  

On January 4, a US official told Reuters that the US military carried out a retaliatory strike in Baghdad that killed a leader of a militia group aligned with Iraq.

Also on Thursday, in Lebanon four Hezbollah fighters were killed overnight in the border town of Naqura in southern Lebanon in what was reported to be Israeli air strikes.