As the United States has increased its military presence in the region and the likelihood of an imminent war has risen, numerous reports have emerged of several explosions in different parts of Iran on Saturday, January 31.
Videos published on social media show columns of smoke rising in the cities of Qom, Parand, and Bandar Abbas.
There have also been unconfirmed reports of explosions in Tabriz, Shahriar, and Saveh.
In Bandar Abbas, the director general of crisis management for Hormozgan Province reported an explosion in a residential home and announced that the incident has so far left 14 injured and one dead.
Iranian Regime Majlis Acknowledges Arrest of Children in January Protests#IranProtests #IranRevolution #FreeIran2026 #No2ShahNo2Mullahshttps://t.co/cVQZNcYmRw
— Iran Focus (@Iran_Focus) January 30, 2026
While official media outlets of Iran’s regime have described the cause of the incident as a “gas explosion,” a citizen journalist has published a video showing that the building where the explosion occurred had no gas piping at all and was not connected to the urban gas network.
There have also been reports of internet disruptions following this explosion in Bandar Abbas.
At the same time, rumors circulated about the killing of Alireza Tangsiri, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, in the Bandar Abbas explosion, which the IRGC’s public relations office denied.
In Parand, the governor of Robat Karim and Parand said the thick smoke observed was caused by a reed fire and that the Parand industrial town had not experienced any incident. In Ahvaz, the fire chief announced that following a gas explosion in a four-unit building in the Kian Shahr neighborhood, four members of a family—including the father, mother, and two children—lost their lives. The source of this explosion has not yet been determined.
Claims by officials of Iran’s regime that such incidents are the result of “gas explosions” or “natural fires” are not new. In the past as well, especially during the twelve-day war in which many senior military and political officials of Iran’s regime were killed in similar incidents, the regime frequently cited gas explosions as the cause.
Hours after these explosions, Reuters news agency quoted two Israeli officials as saying that Israel had no role in the series of explosions that occurred in Iran on Saturday, January 31.
Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has in recent weeks repeatedly expressed explicit support for Iranian protesters and warned Iran’s regime and its repressive apparatus against killing protesters, saying that if protesters are executed, the United States will take “very decisive actions.”
On Saturday, January 17, in an interview with Politico magazine, he said that the “Ayatollah” is guilty of completely destroying his country and that it is time to look for new leadership in Iran.
The United States has sent a massive naval fleet—including the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group—and very large quantities of military equipment and hardware to the region.
