The Islamic State announcement dovetailed with American intelligence assessment indicating that the attack, which killed 84 people, was most likely the work of the group.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Thursday for the bombing attack that killed 84 people in Kerman, Iran, on Wednesday, according to a post on the extremist group’s official Telegram account.
Some Iranian leaders had initially appeared to blame Israel for the attack, stoking fears that the war in Gaza — in which Israel is battling Hamas, a Palestinian ally of Iran — would widen into a regional conflict.
Six Israeli officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss such intelligence matters, strongly denied that Israel had any role in the attack. Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism analyst at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm based in New York, said he suspected the Islamic State’s Khorasan affiliate, also known as ISIS-K, which is based in Afghanistan, as a likely perpetrator of the attack.
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