ISIL (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack in the southeastern city that killed nearly 100 people and injured scores.

The United States government had privately warned Iran that ISIL (ISIS) was preparing a terrorist attack ahead of coordinated suicide bombings that killed nearly 100 people in the southeastern city of Kerman.

The confidential warning came after the US received information that the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan was planning an attack on Iran, a US official said on Thursday.

“The U.S. government had a long-standing policy of ‘duty to warn,’ implemented across all administrations, to alert governments to potential deadly threats,” said the official, who requested anonymity. “We are issuing these warnings in part because we do not want innocent lives to be lost in terrorist attacks.”

On January 3rd two suicide attacks in Kerman were carried out during a memorial service for slain commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in 2020.

Soleimani, the head of the elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was killed in an attack in Iraq ordered by then US President Donald Trump.

The armed group ISIL claimed responsibility on Jan. 4 for the attack in Kerman, about 820 km (510 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran.

At least 35 people were arrested across the country after the bombings, the Iranian intelligence ministry said. Authorities said they had identified the suspected ringleader as a Tajik national known by his alias Abdollah Tajiki.

He entered Iran via the southeastern border in mid-December and left the country two days before the attack after making the bombs, the ministry said in a statement.

Iranian forces then attacked targets in Iraq and Syria, allegedly linked to ISIL. The IRGC said targets hit included the suspected headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq.

Tehran frequently claims that both Israel and the US support anti-Iran armed groups that have been involved in previous attacks.

In 2022, ISIL claimed responsibility for an attack on an Iranian Shiite shrine that killed 15 people.

Previous attacks attributed to ISIL include two bombings in 2017 on Iran’s parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the republic’s founder.

Since the Hamas attack, there has been repeated violence in the Middle East October 7 attacks about Israel and the subsequent bombing of the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces, which has now killed more than 26,000 Palestinians.

The US accuses Iran of supporting the Palestinian group Hamas, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, the Lebanese Hezbollah and armed groups in Iraq.

‘Olive branch’

Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, DC, said the US warning could reflect a broader desire by Washington to engage in dialogue despite recent attacks on the US by Iran-backed proxies Tehran seeks Israeli and other Western interests.

“This is an olive branch,” Alterman told Reuters, adding that when US President Joe Biden took office, the administration assumed that dialogue between Washington and Tehran could benefit both sides.

The Biden administration has so far failed to revive that 2015 agreement An agreement was reached between Tehran and world powers that would limit Iran’s nuclear activities in return for the lifting of sanctions.

The US unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 under Trump, who claimed the agreement was not doing enough, and imposed its toughest sanctions on Iran, which remain in effect.