Iran was on high alert today after a powerful explosion rocked a building in the port of Bandar Abbas, on the Persian Gulf.
Reports suggested an attack on a senior Revolutionary Guards commander. But Iranian authorities categorically denied the report that the Revolutionary Guards Navy commander was targeted.
Also today, a second explosion in southern Iran, in the city of Ahvaz, killed four members of the same family.
According to initial reports, the explosion in Bandar Abbas caused extensive damage to two floors of an eight-story building, as well as to parked cars and adjacent shops. Firefighters and rescue teams rushed to the scene, while authorities cordoned off the area for security reasons and to investigate the cause.
The Tasnim news agency reported that "the information circulating on social media that the commander of the Revolutionary Guards' Navy was targeted is completely false," dismissing scenarios of an attack on a senior military official.
A few hours later, Iran International reported, citing ISNA, that a second explosion occurred in southern Iran, this time in a four-story residential building in the city of Ahvaz. Four people were killed in the incident.
The head of Ahvaz Fire and Security Services, Babak Rabei, told ISNA that the explosion occurred in the Kianshahr neighborhood and resulted in the deaths of a father, a mother and their two children. He said that two people, a three-year-old child and a woman, were pulled alive from the rubble and taken to hospital.
Iranian authorities are continuing their investigations into the causes of the two explosions, without yet announcing whether there is any connection between the two incidents.
