Iran's Raisi: ‘Zionist regime will pay the price’ after blasts at Soleimani's memorial
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told a crowd in Tehran "the Zionist regime will pay the price", following two explosions that killed nearly 100 people on Wednesday (January 3) to commemorate commander Qassem Soleimani.
Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone in 2020
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Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone in 2020
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Transcript
00:00 [Crowd noise]
00:10 Two explosions killed scores of people in Iran's southeastern city of Kerman.
00:13 Officials said on Wednesday, the blast took place during a ceremony to commemorate
00:20 top commander Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone in 2020.
00:26 Officials blamed "terrorists," adding that dozens more were wounded in the attack.
00:31 Videos aired by Iranian media showed dozens of bodies strewn around with some bystanders trying
00:37 to attend to survivors and others hurrying to leave the blast area. No group immediately claimed
00:43 responsibility for the attacks. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told a crowd in Tehran, "The Zionist
00:50 regime will pay the price."
00:52 [Speaking in foreign language]
01:19 Ismail Ghaini, head of Iran's elite Quds Force, singled out the Zionist regime and the criminal
01:26 America.
01:26 [Speaking in foreign language]
01:45 The US saw no indication that Israel was behind the two explosions.
01:49 "We aren't at a point now where we have a lot of great detail on this bombing. Certainly,
01:56 our hearts go out to all the innocent victims and their family members who are obviously,
02:01 their lives are going to be forever changed by this. But we don't have any more detail in terms
02:06 of how it happened or who might be responsible for it. We have no indication at this time at all
02:12 that Israel was involved in any way whatsoever."
02:15 "No indication, but just to be clear, you don't think, did they support or assist in some other
02:19 way?"
02:20 "I would, I'm not going to speak for another nation. I would just tell you that we have
02:24 no indication that Israel was in any way involved in this."
02:27 "And given that this was the Soleimani anniversary, did you have any
02:31 intelligence that something was being planned for this day?"
02:34 "We certainly had no indications that there would be some sort of violence surrounding
02:41 the anniversary of his death."
02:43 Soleimani had been chief commander of the overseas arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and was a
02:49 key figure in Iran's long-standing campaign to drive US forces out of the Middle East.
02:57 "