Report: US Warned Iran About Suicide Bombings

The United States reportedly warned Iran before a deadly Jan. 3 Islamic State suicide bombings that killed 84 people.

The alert came after the U.S. acquired intelligence that the Islamic State's affiliate in Afghanistan, ISIS-Khorasan — known as ISIS-K— was plotting the strike on Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"Prior to ISIS's terrorist attack on January 3, 2024, in Kerman, Iran, the U.S. government provided Iran with a private warning that there was a terrorist threat within Iranian borders," an unidentified official told WSJ.

"The U.S. government followed a longstanding 'duty to warn' policy that has been implemented across administrations to warn governments against potential lethal threats. We provide these warnings in part because we do not want to see innoceent lives lost in terror attacks."

Iran, however, failed to prevent the suicide bombings that targeted a crowd commemorating the anniversary of the death of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds force. He was killed in a January 2020 drone near the Baghdad airport ordered by former President Donald Trump.

Despite the American warning, some Iranian hard-liners have suggested that Islamic State perpetrators were linked to the U.S. and Israel, WSJ reported, noting that at a ceremony in Kerman honoring the victims, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, the most senior Revolutionary Guard commander, said Islamic State "has disappeared nowadays" because he jihadists "only act as mercenaries" for U.S. and Israeli interests.

Iranian officials didn't respond to the U.S. about the warning, one unnamed U.S. official told WSJ, while others said it isn't clear why the Iranians failed to thwart or blunt the attack.

The U.S. routinely shares warnings of potential terrorist activity with allies and partners. In some cases, it also warns potential adversaries — like in December 2019, when the U.S. shared intelligence with the Kremlin about a plot in St. Petersburg.

The bombings in Kerman, which killed 84 Iranians and wounded hundreds more, were the bloodiest terrorist attack inside Iran since the current government took over in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, WSJ reported.