Iranian authorities have said that security forces had arrested 11 people suspected of involvement in two bomb blasts that killed nearly 100 people at a memorial service for a slain military commander.
Iran's intelligence ministry said in a statement that security forces detained two people for providing support to the two suicide bombers in Kerman and nine others based in other parts of Iran who were suspected of links to the incident.
The bombings were the deadliest such attacks in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Earlier, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi told state TV a number of suspects had been arrested.
"Our country's capable intelligence agencies have found very good clues regarding elements involved in the terrorist explosions in Kerman and a section of those who had a role in this incident have been arrested," he said without elaborating.
Deputy Interior Minister Majid Mirahmadi said: "Various individuals have been arrested in five cities in five provinces, who have supported this incident or been linked to it.
"Details will be announced in the next few hours", the state news agency reported.
Nearly 100 people were killed in the blasts at a memorial service for military commander General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq in 2020 by a US drone.
As victims were buried today, mourners wept over their coffins and crowds chanted "revenge, revenge," state TV showed.
The explosions took place amid a tense mood in the region as Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza neared the three-month mark.
The Intelligence Ministry said its agents seized explosive devices and raw material, explosive vests, remote-control devices, detonators and thousands of pellets used in explosive vests.
One of the suicide bombers was identified as a Tajik national, it said.
Islamic State said yesterday that two of its members had detonated explosive belts in the crowd that had gathered for Soleimani's memorial.
"We will find you wherever you are," Revolutionary Guards commander Major-General Hossein Salami said at the funeral in Kerman's Imam Ali religious centre.
In 2022, Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a Shi'ite shrine in Iran that killed 15 people, while earlier attacks claimed by IS include twin bombings in 2017 that targeted Iran's parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
