As if the Middle East tension were not enough with incendiary events taking place in an arc from the Mediterranean coastline of Syria, Lebanon and Israel to Iran and stretching through to Afghanistan and Pakistan, a major terror incident killing at least 103 people in Kerman, Iran, comes like an ominous portent.
The killing of a top Hamas leader in Lebanon by an Israeli missile strike, the twin explosions in Iran that ripped lives out of people coming to the aid of those hurt in the first bomb blast have exacerbated tensions so much you could cut it with a knife.
Adding fuel to the stressed situation is the explosive action of the Houthi rebels from the southern end of the Red Sea aiming missiles and drones at global shipping lanes. They have been issued a written warning by the US and 12 other countries that they would bear the responsibility for any consequences arising out of action to protect ships in critical waterways.
The player in the background behind much of sniping terrorist action is without doubt Iran, which backs proxies like the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels of Yemen and others in Syria and Iraq while blaming the US and Israel. But its protest on this occasion was aimed at “malicious and criminal enemies” rather than any country.
The twin blasts seemed to carry the signature of domestic terrorism of the Sunni kind, suspected to be the IS taking a hand, unless Israel or any other power was using a proxy group to bring off another senseless act of violence which, however, is almost the norm in this arc of Middle East terror.
A huge gathering of people solemnising the memory of a war figure in the Iranian general Qassim Suleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, fell victims on his fourth death anniversary, with more than 200 injured besides those killed.
Considering what is said of him — that Suleimani taught “death is the beginning of life, not the end of life” as an Iraqi militant commander put it — there seems to be no end to bloodshed, long after he was eliminated by a targeted drone attack by the US on Baghdad.
It is open to question what the great apostles of peace of human history will make of these acts of violence by terrorists as well as the armed forces of countries that are shaping the narrative of life in the modern era.
