Iranian media reports say Iran's Ministry of Intelligence Friday (January 5) evening released a statement on the Kerman twin blasts, claiming that one of the alleged suicide bombers held Tajikistani nationality.

According to the statement, the ministry claims that it has arrested 11 people in six provinces who involved in the attack.

Iran International says the ministry also claimed that the security apparatus had found out about the role of the Islamic States terrorist group in the bombings right after the attack was carried out.

“The first operation to arrest the terrorists' supporters took place on the evening of the incident, and the residence used by the two terrorists was identified the next morning, leading to the arrest of two support elements,” read the statement. Later operations led to the arrest of nine suspects connected to the terrorist team in six provinces.

Meanwhile, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported on January 7 that Kerman Prosecutor Mahdi Bakhshi has said that 32 people related to the Kerman terrorist crime have been arrested.

Speaking in a TV program late on Saturday (January 6), Bakhshi reportedly said that all perpetrators of the Kerman terrorist attacks were arrested.

In its second statement, the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group announced that it intended to take other measures, but they failed against the authority of the Iranian security forces, he added.

Some 23 IS elements ready for suicide operations were arrested in Kerman province in recent months, the prosecutor noted.

He went on to say that two suicide bombers who intended to carry out operations in the funeral ceremony of the martyrs of the terrorist attacks in Kerman were identified before the ceremony.

More than 60 bombs have been discovered in other provinces, Bakhshi was cited as saying.  

Recall, the main perpetrator of a similar attack on Shahcheragh, a funerary monument and mosque in Shiraz that was the site of a similar attack about a year ago, was also a citizen of Tajikistan, identified as Rahmatulloh Navrouzov. 

As it had been reported earlier, at least 84 people were killed and 284 others, including women and children, injured in twin blasts that occurred at a memorial for top commander Qassem Soleimani in the Iranian city of Kerman on the evening of January 3.        

The memorial was marking the fourth anniversary of the death of Qassem Soleimani, one of the most powerful military commanders in Iran, who was assassinated by a U.S. drone in Iraq on January 3, 2020.

Soleimani was buried in his hometown of Kerman after a funeral that drew millions of mourners across Iran.

IRNA, citing an informed source, reported on January 4 that surveillance camera footage and other evidence around the first blast pointed to a suicidal attack.  The second blast, still under probe, was "most probably" also a suicide attack, said the source.

According to IRNA, the first blast was about 700 meters from the tomb and the second was a kilometer away.  Rahman Jalali, the deputy governor of Kerman province for political and security affairs, told the agency the explosions were carried out by terrorists.

The Islamic State (IS) terrorist group claimed more than 24 hours after the bombing that two of its suicide bombers had detonated explosives.   

IRNA reported on January 4 that “the Daesh (Daesh is the acronym for the group's full Arabic name, al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham) terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the Wednesday attacks in Iran’s southeastern city of Kerman that left 84 people dead.”

Citing Reuters, IRNA says, “The Takfiri group issued a statement on Thursday night, claiming responsibility for the explosions that also left 284 people, including children, injured.”

Reuters reports that in a statement posted on its affiliate Telegram channels, the IS terrorist group said two IS members had detonated explosive belts in the crowd that had gathered at the cemetery in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman on January 3.

The IS terrorist has attacked civilians and security forces in Iran on a number of occasions in recent years.

According to the BBC, it welcomed the 2020 death of General Soleimani, whose militias fought against this Sunni Muslim terrorist group in Iraq for years.

In 2022, the IS terrorist group claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a Shi'ite shrine in Iran which killed 15 people.

Earlier attacks claimed by the group include deadly twin bombings in 2017 which targeted Iran's parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.   

Turkish Anadolu Agency (AA), citing Turkish security sources, reported on June 22 last year that police in Istanbul detained Tajik citizen Shamil Hukumatov on suspicion of being one of leaders of the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist organization, a regional branch of the IS terrorist group active in South and Central Asia, primarily in Afghanistan.

According to media reports, IS-K head Sanaullah Ghaffari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajir, was killed in the northwestern Kunar province of Afghanistan in the first week of June last year.  According to AA, he was responsible for a number of deadly attacks in Afghanistan, including a suicide bombing at Kabul Airport in August 2021 that killed over 180 people.  The interim Taliban administration, however, has yet to confirm his death.

The threat from IS-K, and Afghanistan-based Tajik militants has led official Dushanbe to try to consolidate its security ties with powerful neighbors.