2024 Kerman Bombings
On 3 January 2024, a commemorative ceremony marking the assassination of Qasem Soleimani at his grave in eastern Kerman, Iran, was attacked by two bomb explosions. The attacks killed at least 94 people, and injured 284 others. The Iranian government declared the bombings a terrorist attack, making it the deadliest such incident in the country since the Cinema Rex attack of 1978. On the following day, the Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim extremist group, claimed responsibility for the attack in the Shia Muslim dominated country. According to Reuters, the United States Intelligence Community concluded that the attack was perpetrated by the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State, ISIS-K. Background On 3 January 2020 General Qasem Soleimani was Assassination of Qasem Soleimani, killed by a United States drone strike in Iraq. Soleimani was the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Soleimani held a position of significant influence in Iran, widel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kerman
Kerman ( fa, كرمان, Kermân ; also romanized as Kermun and Karmana), known in ancient times as the satrapy of Carmania, is the capital city of Kerman Province, Iran. At the 2011 census, its population was 821,394, in 221,389 households, making it the 10th most populous city of Iran. It is the largest and most developed city in Kerman Province and one of the most important cities in the southeast of Iran. It is also one of the largest cities of Iran in terms of area. Kerman is famous for its long history and strong cultural heritage. The city is home to many historic mosques and Zoroastrian fire temples. Kerman became the capital city of Iranian dynasties several times during its history. It is located on a large, flat plain, 800 km (500 mi) south-east of Tehran, the capital of Iran. History Kerman was founded as a defensive outpost, with the name Veh-Ardashir, by Ardashir I, founder of the Sasanian Empire, in the 3rd century AD. After the Battle of Nahāv ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Qasem Soleimani
Qasem Soleimani ( fa, قاسم سلیمانی, ; 11 March 19573January 2020) was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until his assassination in 2020, he was the commander of the Quds Force, an IRGC division primarily responsible for extraterritorial and clandestine military operations. In his later years, he was considered by some analysts to be the right-hand man of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, as well as the second-most powerful person in Iran behind him.U.S. killing of Iran's second most powerful man risks regional conflagration reuters.com As a civi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2022 Shah Cheragh Attack
The Shah Cheragh attack () was a terrorist attack that occurred on 26 October 2022 at Shah Cheragh mosque, a Shia pilgrimage site in Shiraz in southern Iran, in which at least 13 people were killed. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Iranian authorities condemned the attacks and accused the protestors of Mahsa Amini's death of paving the way for such attacks to occur. On 8 July 2023 two men were executed for their involvement in the attack. Background Iran is a Shia Islamic theocracy that has suffered from terrorist attacks by Sunni Islamists and separatists in the past. In April 2022, two Shia clerics were stabbed to death in Mashhad; the perpetrator was allegedly a radical Sunni Uzbek. In 2017, ISIS bombed the mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini. In 2008, a bombing in a mosque in Shiraz killed 14 people. Attack On 26 October 2022, either 13 or 15 people were killed in a mass shooting at Shah Cheragh mausoleum in Shiraz, Fars province, Iran. The Iran ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shiite
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most notably at the event of Ghadir Khumm, but was prevented from succeeding Muhammad as the leader of the Muslims as a result of the choice made by some of Muhammad's other companions (''ṣaḥāba'') at Saqifah. This view primarily contrasts with that of Sunnī Islam, whose adherents believe that Muhammad did not appoint a successor before his death and consider Abū Bakr, who was appointed caliph by a group of senior Muslims at Saqifah, to be the first rightful (''rāshidūn'') caliph after Muhammad. Adherents of Shīʿa Islam are called Shīʿa Muslims, Shīʿītes, or simply Shīʿa or Shia. Shīʿa Islam is based on a ''ḥadīth'' report concerning Muhammad's pronouncement at Ghadir Khumm.Esposito, John. "What Everyone Needs to Kn ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sayyed Razi Mousavi
Razi Mousavi ( fa, رازی موسوی; 1963 – 25 December 2023) was an Iranian military officer serving in the IRGC's Quds Force. He was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Sayyidah Zaynab, Rif-Dimashq, Syria during the Israel–Hamas war. At the time of his death, Mousavi was described as Iran's most influential military commander in Syria. Military career Born in 1963, Mousavi served in Syria under the IRGC's elite unit, the Quds Force, from the 1980s, facilitating the transfer of arms and funds to the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah. In 1990, he assumed the role of the head of the Iranian logistical division in Syria, known as Unit 2250. Throughout the Syrian Civil War, Mousavi faced multiple assassination attempts orchestrated by Israel. Death Mousavi was killed on 25 December 2023, in a targeted Israeli airstrike at his residence in Sayyidah Zaynab, south of Damascus, amid the Israel–Hamas war. Mousavi's assassination marked the highest-ranking killin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Saleh Al-Arouri
Saleh al-Arouri (born 19 August 1966; ar, صالح العاروري), also transliterated as Salah al-Arouri or Salih al-Aruri, is a prominent leader of Hamas and founding commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military. He is regarded as "the military commander of the West Bank." And as being "a capable, charismatic, suspicious, and shrewd operator, with excellent connections." Al-Arouri founded the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The government of the United States accuses al-Arouri of having been, "a high-ranking Hamas military leader dating back to his role as a Hamas student cell leader at Hebron University in the early 1990s." He also served as a recruiter, and was actively involved in raising and transferring funds on behalf of Hamas. He remains the subject of a $5,000,000 bounty by the Rewards for Justice Program. Education, recruitment and jail time Al-Arouri was born on 19 August 1966 in Ramallah in the West Bank. In 1985, he enrolled at Hebron Unive ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Assassination Of Saleh Al-Arouri
On 2 January 2024, Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy leader of Hamas, was killed in an Israeli strike on an office in the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon. The strike also killed six other individuals, including additional high-ranking Hamas militants. Saleh al-Arouri was the deputy leader of the Hamas political bureau and one of the architects of the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. He was also responsible for the expansion of Hamas' activities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including attacks on Israelis. This attack is widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, Hamas' main adversary. However, Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in this incident. The assassination occurred a day before Hezbollah commemorated the fourth anniversary of the assassination of senior Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani. Background On 8 October 2023, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fired guided rockets and artillery shells at Israeli positions in the di ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2023 Israel–Hamas War
} The ongoing armed conflict between Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups and Israel military forces began on 7 October 2023, 50 years after the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Hamas's coordinated surprise offensive, codenamed "Al-Aqsa Flood", began in the morning with a barrage of at least 5,000 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip against Israel, while some 2,500 Palestinian militants breached the Gaza–Israel barrier, massacred and set fire to civilian communities, and attacked Israel Defense Forces (IDF) military bases near the Gaza Strip. Hamas stated that its attack was in response to the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, continued Israeli settlements, and Israeli settler violence. Over 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed, including 260 people at a music festival in Re'im. Over 200 people, unarmed civilian hostages and captured Israeli soldiers, were taken to the Gaza Strip. Israeli military forces began conducting r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Funeral Of Qasem Soleimani
The funeral of Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was held from 4 to 7 January 2020 in some cities in Iraq and Iran – including Baghdad, Karbala, Najaf, Ahvaz, Mashhad, Tehran, Qom, and his hometown Kerman. The funeral ceremony of Soleimani in Tehran was described as "the largest in Iran since the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini", founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in 1989. On 7 January 2020, a stampede took place at the burial procession in Kerman, killing at least 56 mourners and injuring over 200. Consequently, Soleimani's burial was delayed due to the massive crowds.The BBC reported that millions of mourners gathered in Soleimani funeral on 6th January. His body was buried in his hometown of Kerman on Wednesday, 8 January, just hours after Iran attacked two US bases in Iraq in retaliation for his death. Iraq On 5 January, a funeral procession for Qasem Soleimani was held in Baghdad with thous ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hezbollah
Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the idea of Hezbollah arose among Lebanese clerics who had studied in Najaf, and who adopted the model set out by Ayatollah Khomeini after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. After failing to agree on a name for the new organisation, the party's founders adopted the name chosen by Ayatollah Khomeini, Hezbollah. The organization was established as part of an Iranian effort, through funding and the dispatch of a core group of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (pasdaran) instructors, to aggregate a variety of Lebanese Shia groups into a unified organization to resist the I ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hamas
Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. It won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election and became the ''de facto'' governing authority of the Gaza Strip following the 2007 Battle of Gaza. It also holds a majority in the parliament of the Palestinian National Authority. Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization. New Zealand and Paraguay have designated only its military wing as a terrorist organization. It is not considered a terrorist organization by Brazil, China, Egypt, Iran, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Syria and Turkey. In December 2018, the United Nations General Assembly rejected a U.S. resolution condemning Hamas as a terrorist organization. Hamas leaders Ismail Han ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ali Khamenei
Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei ( fa, سید علی حسینی خامنهای, ; born 19 April 1939) is a Twelver Shia ''marja''' and the second and current Supreme Leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously the third president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei is the longest serving head of state in the Middle East, as well as the second-longest serving Iranian leader of the last century, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. According to his official website, Khamenei was arrested six times before being sent into exile for three years during Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's reign. After the Iranian revolution overthrowing the shah, he was the target of an attempted assassination in June 1981 that paralysed his right arm. Khamenei was one of Iran's leaders during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s, and developed close ties with the now powerful Revolutionary Guards which he controls, and whose commanders are elected and dismissed by him. The Revolutionary Guards have been ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |