Friday Briefing: Islamic State Claims the Iran Bombing

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a bombing attack that killed at least 84 people in Kerman, Iran, on Wednesday, according to a post on the extremist group’s official Telegram account.

The group called the attack a “dual martyrdom operation,” and described how two militants had detonated explosive belts strapped to their bodies during a commemoration ceremony at the tomb of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani. The general, a widely revered and feared Iranian military leader, was assassinated four years ago in a U.S. drone attack.

The Islamic State was probably seizing an opportunity to hit an enemy, U.S. officials said. The Sunni Muslim group has claimed responsibility for several previous attacks on Iran, which has a Shiite Islamic government and runs an alliance of Shiite groups across the Middle East.

The bombing in Iran, and the killing of Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas leader, in Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday, has heightened fears of a regional war that could draw in the U.S. Just hours after the bombs went off in Iran, the U.S. and 12 of its allies issued a written warning to the Houthis of Yemen, who have been mounting near-daily attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

The U.S. has held back from retaliating against Houthi bases in Yemen, in large part because it does not want to undermine a fragile truce in the country’s civil war. But on Wednesday it accused Iran, which has supplied weapons and intelligence to the Houthis, of involvement in the Red Sea attacks.

In the war in Gaza:

A surge in sightings of balloons from China flying over Taiwan has drawn the attention of the island’s military and struck some experts as a calculatedly ambiguous warning. On Jan. 13, Taiwanese voters will choose a president