US says ISIS could have carried out Iran bombing

The U.S.-designated terrorist group ISIS could have carried out the deadly bombing in Iran on Wednesday that killed more than 100 people, according to a senior U.S. official.

“It does look like a terrorist attack. The type of thing we’ve seen ISIS do in the past,” said the official. “And as far as we’re aware, that’s … our going assumption at the moment.”

Iranian officials have also blamed the bombing in the southeastern city of Kerman on a terrorist attack, without elaborating on who was behind it.

Iran has for years battled ISIS, an extremist Islamic group that is avowedly anti-Iran and anti-Shia, primarily through proxies in Iraq and Syria. Though ISIS has suffered major losses at the hands of American forces and other groups, it still maintains sleeper cells across the Middle East.

The U.S. and Israel are locked in a tense shadow conflict with Iran across the Middle East amid the war in Gaza. But a strike on Iranian soil would be unprecedented and a major escalation in the region, which the U.S. is trying to prevent.

Israel last month assassinated an Iranian general, but that was on Syrian soil. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday there is no indicationthat Israel was behind the explosion in Kerman.