Dissidents Accuse Iran of ‘Covering Up’ True Death Toll from Port Explosion

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a dissident group based in Europe, has accused the regime in Tehran of lying about the true death toll from the massive explosions at the port of Bandar Abbas on Saturday. According to NCRI, the regime is desperate to conceal both the cause of the explosion and the lethal incompetence of their response. “The true death toll is several times higher than officially reported and certainly exceeds 100,” NCRI president Maryam Rajavi said on Sunday. “The IRGC, intelligence forces, and other organs of repression have mobilized – not to contain the fires or rescue the wounded – but to control the situation and cover up the shipment of solid fuel for ballistic missiles and the full scale of the disaster,” Rajavi charged.

The IRGC is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the theocratically-controlled wing of the Iranian military. The IRGC is a designated terrorist organization that frequently uses force to terrorize Iranian citizens into obedience. Bandar Abbas, located in southern Iran, is home to the most important container shipping port in the country. A titanic explosion ripped through the port on Saturday, starting fires that were still burning days later. The incident reminded many observers of the August 2020 blast at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon, a disaster for which the dysfunctional Lebanese government has yet to hold anyone responsible. The blast was almost certainly caused by poorly-stored explosive material belonging to the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.

As Rajavi indicated, international investigators suspect a similar situation occurred in Bandar Abbas. The regime mumbled something about poorly secured industrial chemicals, and vaguely hinted that foreign sabotage might have played a role. “Our security services are on high alert given past instances of attempted sabotage and assassination operations designed to provoke a legitimate response, ” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday.The Iranian government is not usually reticent about naming suspected foreign saboteurs. The same part of the Bandar Abbas port complex, known as Shahid Rajaei, was paralyzed by a suspected Israeli cyberattack in 2020, ostensibly launched in retaliation for an Iranian cyberattack on Israel’s water infrastructure. (Ed note: Solid state propellant is not required or necessary for a rocket to reach Israel or Saudi Arabia, but will be used on ICBM's to reach America!)    (Read more)