Iran’s State-Censored Media Blames Abstract Enemies for Bombings

Iranian officials and state-censored media outlets usually do not shy away from blaming foreign powers for most calamities befalling Iran. In 2012, for instance, then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad famously attributed a drought to “the West emptying the water from the clouds.” It is therefore all the more remarkable that many of those same officials and outlets have been generally restrained in their reactions to the January 3 bombings of a memorial for former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force chief Major General Qassim Suleimani. For the most part, abstract “enemies” have been blamed, while a few sources have indirectly blamed Israel and the United States.

• January 3: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei released a statement on his official website vowing revenge: “The enemies could not tolerate the love of the people for martyr Suleimani … The perpetrators … should know that the soldiers following the illuminated path of Suleimani will not tolerate their rascality and crime. The hands dipped in the blood of the innocent and the corrupted and corrupting minds, which led them to this path, both must now face justice.”
• January 3: In a statement released by IRGC mouthpiece Mashregh News, the IRGC claimed the attack was “a vindictive act of blind terrorism pursuing the aim of creating an appearance of insecurity in the country and taking revenge on the love and devotion of the great Iranian nation, in particular the honor-seeking youth, to that martyr,” referencing Suleimani. “Cowardly enemies should know that martyr Suleimani ignited a sparkle in the hearts of Iranians and his other devotees, which unites them in a shared front of resistance and self-sacrifice.”
• January 4: Supreme National Security Council Secretary mouthpiece Nour News reported on “a global wave of international condemnation of the terrorist act in Kerman.”
• January 4: Quds Force chief Brigadier General Ismail Qaani visited the site of the bombings in Kerman to “renew his fealty to the former commander,” IRGC mouthpiece Tasnim News reported.
• January 4: Basij chief Brigadier General Gholamreza Suleimani, addressing a memorial for Suleimani in Isfahan, blamed the Mossad and CIA for the bombings, Tasnim reported.
• January 4: Fars News, which is close to the IRGC, reported that Ahmad Vahidi, Iran’s interior minister and former chief of the Quds Force, promised to identify and punish the perpetrators while visiting those wounded in the attacks.
• January 4: IRGC mouthpiece Javan newspaper reported extensively on the bombings but did not make accusations against any specific foreign government or organization.
• January 4: Kayhan newspaper, which at times has served as a mouthpiece of Khamenei, did not identify the perpetrators of the bombings but connected them to the December 25, 2023 assassination of Razi Mousavi, Quds Force field commander in Syria, and the January 2 assassination of Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Beruit.
• January 4: Alleging the United States perpetrated the bombings in Kerman, Mashregh News wrote: In “the new version of” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “‘death by a thousand cuts’ … the Americans are trying to contain Iran through means such as terrorism, sabotage, limited war, and the like to manipulate public opinion” in Iran and “start a new round of unrest in Iran.”
• January 4: Hossein Jalali, a parliamentarian from Kerman, said, as quoted by reformist Shargh Daily: “The enemies even fear the name of Haj Qassim,” referencing Suleimani, “his tomb, and the pilgrims visiting his shrine … Just as Israel can’t prevail in the fight against Hamas and instead kills women and children, today, Israeli elements perpetrated this crime against the pilgrims of the shrine of Haj Qassim.”

The views represented herein are the author's or speaker's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of AGSI, its staff, or its board of directors.