Iran has denied a media report that the United States alerted the Islamic republic to a plot by the extremist Islamic State (IS) group that killed more than 90 people.
The official state news agency IRNA on January 26 cited “an informed diplomatic source” rejecting a report by The Wall Street Journal on January 25 about U.S. intelligence alerting Iran to the attack.
It also quoted an unnamed “security source” as saying that “even if” true, Washington only would have shared its intelligence to “protect itself against Iran’s response.”
Two explosions on January 3 at a memorial for Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) General Qassem Soleimani in the southeastern city of Kerman were claimed by Islamic State (IS). The group said two of its members detonated their suicide vests, causing the explosions, which injured more than 280 people.
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Deadly Blasts In Iran Strike Memorial For Slain General Soleimani
Iran accused Israel and the U.S. of involvement in the attack without providing evidence. Tehran has long alleged, while never presenting any evidence, that the United States has ties to IS.
A U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the Wall Street Journal report about “privately” tipping Iran off in an email to RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.
"We provide these warnings in part because we do not want to see innocent lives lost in terror attacks,” the U.S. official said in an e-mail.
The Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed U.S. officials as saying that the information passed to Iran was “specific enough about the location and sufficiently timely” that it could have helped Tehran to thwart the attack, or at least mitigate the death toll.
Radio Farda has learned that the warning came more than a week before the attack.
The incident intensified fears of widening conflict in the Middle East as Israel continues its war against the U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Yemen-based Huthi rebels allied with Iran continue their attacks on Red Sea commercial shipping. Hamas is also linked with Tehran.
Soleimani was killed in what the United States called a "defensive" drone strike while he was traveling in a two-car convoy near Baghdad's international airport on January 3, 2020. He was considered to be one of the most powerful men in Iran and the architect of Tehran's foreign policy in the region at the time.