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A series of mysterious blasts rocked major cities across Iran on January 31, amid rising tensions with the United States and Israel.
Since the start of the month, U.S. President Trump has repeatedly threatened military action if Iran killed protesters or carried out mass executions of prisoners. Recent days saw the U.S. deploying additional military assets to the Middle East, including the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its strike group.
The most serious incident occurred in the province of Hormozgan, where an explosion hit an eight-story building in the port city of Bandar Abbas.
Following the blast, claims emerged that the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy had been targeted. The guards, however, issued a statement rejecting these allegations, and saying that no commander was targeted and that the explosion was caused by a natural gas leak.
“This (gas leak and accumulation) is the preliminary assessment. My colleagues will give more details in the next few hours,” Mohammad Amin Liaqat, the fire department chief, confirmed from his side in a video published by Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency.
Iranian state media later reported that the powerful blast claimed the life of one person and left more than 14 others wounded.
Separately, four people were killed after another gas explosion in the city of Ahvaz in the Khuzestan province, according to state-run Tehran Times. No further information was immediately available.
An explosion was also reported in the capital, Tehran. State media did not release detailed information about casualties or damage in the incident.
Around the same time another explosion occurred in the center of Qom province. The city is known as the birthplace of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and a major center for training the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment. State media reported that the incident caused material damage, but no casualties.
While Iran has been facing threats mainly from the U.S., it was speculated by some observers that the Israeli Mossad spy agency was behind the recent incidents.
Recent years saw a notable increase in similar incidents in Iran, with at least some attributed to sabotage by Israeli intelligence.
Responding to these speculations, Israeli officials told Reuters that Israel was not involved in the latest wave of blasts in Iran.
While the blasts didn’t target anything of importance, at least according to the current information, they may have been caused by sabotage as part of some psychological operation. If Israel was not indeed involved, then it may have been the U.S. intelligence.
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iran needs to flatten the zionist bastards. use all your missiles on the zionists and jordan. us cowards can not do much to iran. also test a nuke.