Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, General Hossein Salami, presented Tehran’s first response on Friday after the Islamic State group (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack that killed nearly 100 people on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack Thursday night in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman, where thousands of people gathered to mark four years since the killing of General Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in a US drone strike at Baghdad airport.

The Islamic State group said on Thursday that two of its members detonated explosive belts at a crowd gathered at a cemetery in Kerman.

“We will find you, wherever you are,” threatened the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps in Tehran at the funeral of the dead, referring to the “Islamic State”.

“Our enemies see the strength of Iran, and the whole world knows about our strength and capabilities. Our forces will decide when and where to act,” President Raisi also said in a televised address.

Iranian television broadcast images showing a compact crowd at the Imam Ali religious center in Kerman, where families of the victims had gathered to mourn their dead. Their coffins were wrapped in the Iranian flag.

Iran tried to blame the attack on the US and Israel

Despite the fact that the “Islamic State” claimed responsibility for the attack, those present chanted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” in addition to “Revenge, Revenge.”

The official Irna news agency initially reported 103 dead, while Tehran’s public television reported 211 wounded, some seriously. Health Minister Bahram Einollahi later revised the death toll to 95, explaining that some names “were recorded twice”.

A political adviser to the president of Iran initially accused Israel and the United States of being involved in the attack.

“The responsibility for this crime lies with the American and Zionist regimes, and terrorism is only a tool,” Mohammad Jamshidi wrote on the “X” platform, formerly Twitter.

The State Department in Washington said any suggestion of US or Israeli involvement was absurd. “The United States was not involved in any way,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, adding: “We have no reason to believe that Israel was involved.”

Israel, a staunch enemy of Iran, has not commented on the attack. “We are focused on fighting Hamas,” said army spokesman Daniel Hagari when asked about it.

The attack comes against the backdrop of an extremely tense regional war between Israel and Hamas, and a day after a senior member of the Palestinian terror movement was killed in an attack near Beirut.

The “Islamic State” calls on jihadists to carry out terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States

Wednesday’s attack was the deadliest in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Hours after claiming responsibility for the attack, Islamic State on Thursday called on its followers to carry out attacks on cities in Europe and the United States to “take revenge” on Muslims in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere in the Middle East.

“Let them know that they will be held accountable for the crimes committed in Palestine, in Iraq, in the Levant and in other Muslim countries on the streets of Washington, Paris, London, Rome and in atheist countries,” he said. the spokesman of the terrorist group Abu Hazif al-Ansari in an audio message broadcast on the channels of the “Islamic State”.

In the message, which unusually lasted more than half an hour, a spokesman for the jihadist movement suggested that the “conflict” should now be focused on Israel’s allies, rather than the Jewish state itself, and on Arab countries that maintain relations with Israel.

“Given our belief that war is being waged against Jews and their allies everywhere, the Islamic State announces the deployment of all its fighters, in particular, and all Muslims in general, to support vulnerable Jews, Christians and their criminal allies anywhere under the sky,” said Abu Hazifa al-Ansari.

He called for “revenge against Muslims in Palestine, Iraq, the Levant and Muslim countries” and for “diversification of plans and operations involving explosives, firearms, cold weapons and vehicle strikes.”

“Follow the Jewish and Christian prisoners on the streets of the USA, Europe and the world, break into their homes and kill them,” urges the same jihadist representative, who also demands that these attacks “make no distinction between civilians and soldiers, because armies of Jews and Christians are bombing Muslim countries without distinguishing between civilians and soldiers,” he thundered.