Holy City of Qom

A chemical factory near the central city of Qom caught fire Sunday, Iranian media reported, a blaze that injured at least two firefighters.

Videos showed heavy black smoke rising from Movaledan chemical factory in the vicinity of Qom, one of Iran’s prominent religious cities.

The cause of the blaze was not immediately known. Twenty fire engines and 150 firefighters were dispatched to the site, the semiofficial ISNA news agency quoted Qom fire department spokesman Hamid Karimi as saying.

Karimi said the firefighters managed to stop the fire from reaching alcohol tanks, although there have been several explosions and two fire engines have caught fire. Iran’s foreign minister apologized Sunday for recorded comments that were leaked to the public last week, creating a firestorm in Iran less than two months before presidential elections.

The recordings of Mohammad Javad Zarif included frank comments on powerful late Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike in 2020. The attack at the time brought the US and Iran to the brink of war. Soleimani’s funeral processions in Iran drew millions of people to the streets.

In the recordings, Zarif criticizes Soleimani’s separate relations with Russia and for refusing to stop using the national carrier Iran Air for Syrian operations despite Zarif’s objections. Iran Air has been sanctioned by the US.

Zarif said in an Instagram post Sunday he hoped Soleimani’s family would forgive him. “I hope that the great people of Iran and all the lovers of General (Soleimani) and especially the great family of Soleimani, will forgive me,” he said.

Zarif’s leaked comments were highly controversial in Iran, where officials mind their words amid a cut-throat political environment that includes the powerful Revolutionary Guard, ultimately overseen by the country’s supreme leader.

Besides the criticism of Soleimani, a top commander in the Guard, Zarif’s leaked remarks included cutting references to the limits of his power in the theocracy. Zarif can be heard saying at various points in the seven-hour tape that it was not meant for release. “If I had known that a sentence of it would be made public, I certainly would not have mentioned it as before,” he said in his Instagram post.

Zarif has said he will not run for president in the upcoming election. Some had suggested him as a potential candidate to challenge hard-liners in the vote.