Iran held a state funeral service yesterday for about 60 people, including its military commanders, killed in its war with Israel, after Tehran’s top diplomat condemned US President Donald Trump’s comments on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “unacceptable.”
The proceedings started at 8am in Tehran, as government offices and many businesses were closed for the occasion.
“The ceremony to honor the martyrs has officially started,” state TV said, showing footage of thousands of people donning black clothes, waving Iranian flags and holding pictures of the slain military commanders.
Photo: AFP
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, along with other senior government officials and military commanders — including Esmail Qaani, head of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards — attended the event.
Senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Shamkhani, who was targeted and wounded during the war, also took part in the ceremony, state TV showed.
Images also displayed mock-ups of Iranian ballistic missiles as well as coffins draped in Iranian flags and bearing portraits of the deceased commanders in uniform near Enghelab Square, where the march began.
A patriotic eulogy blared from loudspeakers as the procession set out across the sprawling metropolis toward Azadi Square.
“Boom boom Tel Aviv,” read one banner, referring to Iranian missiles fired at Israel during the conflict in retaliation for its attacks on Iran.
Among the dead is Mohammad Bagheri, a major general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the second-in-command of the armed forces after the Iranian leader.
He is to be buried alongside his wife and daughter, a journalist for a local media outlet, all killed in an Israeli attack.
Scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, also killed in the attacks, is to be buried with his wife.
Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami, who was killed on the first day of the war, is also be laid to rest after the ceremony — which would also honor at least 30 other top commanders.
Of the 60 people who are to be laid to rest after the ceremony, four are children and four are women.
The US had carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites last weekend, joining ally Israel’s bombardments of Iran’s nuclear program
Trump on his Truth Social platform said he knew exactly where Khamenei was sheltered and did not let Israel or the US Armed Forces “terminate his life.”
He also said he had been working on the possible removal of sanctions against Iran, one of Tehran’s main demands.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi condemned the comments, saying: “If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei.”
“The Great and Powerful Iranian People, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had NO CHOICE but to RUN to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our Missiles, do not take kindly to Threats and Insults,” he said.
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