By Al-Fassel | 2024-01-26

The United States secretly tipped off Iran about the terror plot against the city of Kerman, according to US officials, yet Tehran failed to prevent the suicide bombings that killed and wounded scores of Iranians on January 3.

The Iranian regime -- occupied with stoking tensions in the Red Sea, Strait of Hormuz, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Ukraine -- has once again shown disregard for the safety and security of its own citizens, observers say.

Washington warned Iran that the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" Khorasan branch (ISIS-K) was plotting to carry out the twin suicide bombings that killed at least 84 people and wounded hundreds more, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Thursday (January 25).

The acquired intelligence was "specific enough about the location and sufficiently timely that it might have proved useful to Tehran in thwarting the attack on January 3 or at least mitigating the casualty toll," officials told the WSJ.

Yet Iran failed to prevent the deadly blasts during a memorial for former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF) commander Qassem Soleimani in the southeastern city of Kerman.

ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that two of its operatives had detonated explosive belts.

The twin bombings were the bloodiest attack inside Iran since the current regime came to power in 1979.

Prior to the attack, "the US government provided Iran with a private warning that there was a terrorist threat within Iranian borders," a US official said.

"The US government followed a longstanding 'duty to warn' policy that has been implemented across administrations to warn governments against potential lethal threats," the official said.

"We provide these warnings in part because we do not want to see innocent lives lost in terror attacks."

Despite the warning, Iran has tried to blame the United States and Israel for the attack.

IRGC chief Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami said during a ceremony in Kerman honoring the victims that ISIS "has disappeared nowadays," and that extremists "only act as mercenaries" for US and Israeli interests, the WSJ reported.

Iranian officials did not respond to the United States about the warning, nor was it clear why Tehran failed to thwart or blunt the attack, officials said.

Misplaced priorities

The IRGC trains and equips proxies across the Middle East to do its bidding and further the regime's expansionist policies, while the Iranian people suffer from insecurity and high rates of inflation and unemployment.

Much of Iran's budget for the last fiscal year, similar to prior years, prioritized the IRGC, the IRGC-aligned paramilitary Basij Resistance Forces and its affiliated forces, as well as the regime's propaganda institutions.

The Iranian regime's long-time support for the Houthis in Yemen has come into focus lately after dozens of attacks have threatened vital shipping lanes and endangered the lives of mariners in the strategic Red Sea waterway.

Since mid-November, the Houthis have attempted to attack and harass more than 30 ships in international shipping lanes.

"These illegal incidents include attacks that have employed anti-ship ballistic missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and cruise missiles in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden," the US military's Central Command (CENTCOM) said.

As a result, the United States and United Kingdom, with support from other nations, have launched limited and proportionate strikes against Houthi locations in Yemen to degrade Houthi military capabilities and protect global shipping.

Washington has blamed Iran for the surge in Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, saying the group would not be able to threaten the key global shipping route if not for Tehran's support.

"These attacks have been aided and abetted by Iran with technology equipment, intelligence information, and they are having a real-life impact on people," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said January 10.

Meanwhile, the Iranian regime continues its destabilizing activities through its proxies in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon -- and even in Pakistan, where it hit with missiles and drones what it alleges are bases of militant group Jaish al-Adl on January 16.

Iran has also been heavily criticized for exporting various types of drones and drone technology to Russia, which has been using them in attacks on Ukraine that have targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure.

Security failures

Tehran's misplaced priorities have fueled discontent and resentment at home, with widespread national protests since late 2022 shaking up the status quo in Iran.

To many Iranians, their government's external ventures and lavish spending on foreign proxy wars have brought nothing but poverty, instability and even death.

Instead of shoring up Iran's faltering economy, the regime chooses to spend its dwindling resources on the IRGC and its regional proxies, while it regularly boasts about its increasing military capabilities.

And though Iran has attempted to hide its role in the manufacture and export of drones that its proxies and allies have used to stage attacks in the Middle East and Ukraine, forensic evidence reveals the Islamic Republic's fingerprints.

For all its vaunted military capabilities, Tehran was unable to prevent the deadliest terror attack on Iranian soil in decades, analysts say.

The ISIS-K attack was a humiliating setback for Tehran, said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute think tank.

"ISIS operatives were able to come in and attack in the birthplace of Soleimani," Vatanka told the WSJ. "The headlines wrote themselves: the Islamic Republic cannot protect the Iranian homeland."