A tide of mourners flooded the Iranian city of Ahvaz yesterday, weeping and beating their chests in homage to top general Qasem Soleimani who was killed in a US airstrike in Baghdad.
They chanted “Death to America” as they packed the streets and filled a long bridge spanning a river in the southwestern city, where Soleimani’s remains arrived from Iraq before dawn.
As Shiite chants resonated in the air, mourners held portraits of Soleimani, seen as a hero of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and for spearheading Iran’s Middle East operations as commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.
Photo: Reuters
Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike on Friday near Baghdad International Airport, shocking Iran. He was 62.
The attack was ordered by US President Donald Trump, who said the Quds commander had been planning an “imminent” attack on US diplomats and US forces in Iraq.
In the face of growing Iraqi anger over the airstrike, the country’s parliament was expected to vote yesterday on whether to oust the roughly 5,200 US troops in Iraq.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed “severe revenge” and declared three days of mourning.
However, Trump late on Saturday warned that the US was targeting 52 sites “important to Iran & Iranian culture” and would hit them “very fast and very hard” if the country attacks US personnel or assets.
In a series of saber-rattling tweets, Trump said the choice of 52 targets represented the number of Americans held hostage at the US embassy in Tehran for more than a year starting in late 1979.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that “targeting cultural sites is a WAR CRIME” and a red line in international law.
For Iran’s army chief, the threat was an attempt to distract the world from Soleimani’s “unjustifiable” assassination.
“I doubt they have the courage to initiate” a conflict, Iranian Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi said.
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