Dubai, Feb 1: An explosion tore through an apartment building Saturday in Iran’s port city of Bandar Abbas, killing a 4-year-old girl as local media footage purportedly showed a security force member being carried out by rescuers.
The blast happened a day before a planned naval drill by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil traded passes. The US military has warned Iran not to threaten its warships or commercial traffic in the strait, on which Bandar Abbas sits.
State television quoted a local fire official as blaming the blast on a gas leak. Media reported at least 14 others injured in the explosion.
A local newspaper, Sobh-e Sahel, aired footage of a correspondent speaking in front of the building. The footage included a sequence that showed a man in a green security force uniform being carried out on a stretcher.
He wore a neck brace and appeared to be in pain, his left hand covering the branch insignia on his uniform.
The newspaper did not acknowledge the security force member being carried out elsewhere in its reporting. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard did not discuss the blast, other than to deny that a Guard navy commander had been hurt.
Another explosion blamed on a gas explosion Saturday in the southwestern city of Ahvaz killed five people, state media reported.
Iran remains tense over a threat by US President Donald Trump to potentially launch a military strike on the country over the killing of peaceful protesters or the possible mass execution of those detained in a major crackdown over the demonstrations.
Trump on Saturday night declined to say whether he’d made a decision on what he wanted to do regarding Iran.
Speaking to reporters as he flew to Florida, Trump sidestepped a question about whether Tehran would be emboldened if the US backed away from launching any strikes on Iran, saying, “Some people think that. Some people don’t.”
Trump said Iran should negotiate a “satisfactory” deal to prevent the Middle Eastern country from getting any nuclear weapons but said, “I don’t know that they will. But they are talking to us. Seriously talking to us.”
Ali Larijani, a top security official in Iran, wrote on X late Saturday that “structural arrangements for negotiations are progressing”.
However, there is no public sign of any direct talks with the United States, which Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly ruled out.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on Saturday called for de-escalation and said Egypt is working to bring the US and Iran to the negotiating table to achieve a “peaceful and comprehensive settlement to the Iranian nuclear file,” according to a statement on his phone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Qatar in a statement said Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani visited Tehran on Saturday and met with Larijani about “efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region”. (AP)
