Fear of escalation in the Middle East: US Secretary of State Blinken travels to the region again

There was initially no further information from Washington on the exact destinations of US Secretary of State Blinken 's trip to the Middle East. However, the US chief diplomat has also visited several Arab countries on his travels in recent weeks.

This would be Blinken's fourth trip to the Middle East and his fifth visit to Israel since the attack on Israel by the Islamist Palestinian organization Hamas on 7 October. Blinken also accompanied US President Joe Biden on a visit to Israel in mid-October.

Before Blinken's new trip to the Middle East became known, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller had stated that no country had an "interest in escalation" in the region. Miller also countered statements from Iran that the USA could be involved in an attack in the southern Iranian city of Kerman. "Any suggestion to the contrary" was "ridiculous", said Miller. His government also had "no reason to believe" that Israel had anything to do with the incident.

On Wednesday, at least 95 people died in the bomb attack in Kerman near the grave of General Kassem Soleimani, who was killed by the USA in 2020, according to the health ministry in Tehran. A further 211 people were injured, according to Iranian state media.

Iranian presidential advisor Mohammad Jamshidi blamed Israel and the USA for the attack. The "responsibility for this crime" lies "with the USA and the Zionist regime and terrorism is only a tool", wrote Jamshidi on the online service X, formerly Twitter.

According to state media, the attack was carried out with two bombs detonated about 15 minutes apart near the Saheb al-Saman mosque in Kerman, where the grave of General Kassem Soleimani, who was killed by the USA in 2020, is located. Numerous people had gathered there on Wednesday on the fourth anniversary of his death. The leadership in Tehran spoke of a "terrorist act".

A high-ranking member of the US government compared the attack to attacks by the jihadist militia Islamic State (IS). "It looks like a terrorist attack like the ones IS has carried out in the past, and that is what we are assuming at the moment," the government representative told journalists.

The Iranian government declared Thursday "a day of public mourning throughout the country" in light of the attack.

Following the attack, EU Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Borrell also expressed his condolences to the Iranian government. He "condemned this terrorist attack in the strongest terms" and expressed his "solidarity with the Iranian people", Borrell wrote in online networks on Wednesday evening after a telephone conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

Fears of an expansion of the war between Israel and Hamas, which has been ongoing since October 7, had also grown in light of the killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri in Lebanon. According to a US government representative, Israel carried out the attack.

The Hamas-allied Hezbollah in Lebanon, which in turn is supported by Iran, threatened to retaliate for the killing of al-Aruri. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel of a war against Lebanon, which his militia would then wage "without rules, without borders".

Israel did not comment on the accusations. Army spokesman Daniel Hagari emphasized that Israel remains "focused on the fight against Hamas", but is at the same time "highly prepared for any scenario".

The war between Israel and Hamas has now been going on for almost three months. On October 7, hundreds of Hamas fighters attacked Israel in an unprecedented attack and committed atrocities. Around 1140 people were killed and around 250 others were taken hostage in the Gaza Strip. Since then, Israel has been attacking targets in the Gaza Strip in a massive military campaign and has killed more than 22,300 people, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, which cannot be independently verified.