Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who mourned thousands on the streets of Tehran, wept in mourning on the streets of Tehran on Monday for the funeral of military commander Kassem Solimani who was killed by US drones on orders from US President Donald Trump.
The coffin of General Qassam Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who died in an attack in Baghdad on Friday, was wrapped in his national flag and handed over to the heads of mourners in central Tehran.
Responding to Trump’s threats to hit 52 Iranian sites, if Tehran retaliates for a drone attack, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani explicitly wrote on Twitter: “Never threaten the Iranian nation. ” And Soleimani’s successor tried to drive out American forces from the Middle East in revenge.
Khamenei, 80, led the prayers at the funeral, as her voice broke with emotion. Soleimani, 62, was a national hero in Iran, even many who do not consider themselves supporters of Iran’s clerical rulers.
Aerial footage showed people, many dressed in black, fully packing the streets and side streets in the Iranian capital, “Death to America!” – A demonstration of national unity following anti-government demonstrations in November in which many protesters were killed.
The crowd, which told the state media in lakhs, recalled the crowd gathered in 1989 for the funeral of Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s drive to expand its influence in the Middle East, was widely viewed as the second most powerful person behind Iran’s Khamenei.
His assassination of Soleimani has caused worldwide concern that widespread regional conflict may erupt.
Trump vowed to attack 52 Iranian targets on Saturday, including Iran in revenge for attacks on Americans or American assets, and stood by his threats on Sunday, though US officials cut him short in terms of cultural goals demanded. Trump said the number of 52 corresponds to the number of hostages of the US embassy held for 444 days after the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Rouhani, considered a liberal, responded to Trump on Twitter.
“People who mention the number 52 should also remember the number 290. # IR655,” Rouhani said, referring to the 1988 US warship being killed by an American warship that killed 290.
Trump also took to Twitter to reiterate the White House’s stance that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon” but gave no other details.
‘will be processed’
General Esmail Ghani, Solsimony’s successor, as commander of the Quads Force, accused the elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards of foreign operations, promising to “assassinate Soleimani as strongly as before with the help of God”, And in return for their martyrdom, we have to get rid of the territory of America. ”
“God Almighty has promised to avenge the martyr Solimani,” he told state television. “Certainly, action will be taken.”
Other political and military leaders have also faced similar, unsafe threats. Iran, which lies at the mouth of the major Gulf oil shipping route, has a series of proxy forces through which it can act.
Iran’s demand for US troops to withdraw from the region came to an end on Sunday after Iraq’s parliament passed a resolution calling for all foreign troops to leave the country.
Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Abdel Abdul Mahdi told the US Ambassador in Baghdad on Monday that both nations needed to implement the resolution, the Premier’s office said in a statement. It did not provide a timeline.
The US has about 5,000 soldiers in Iraq.
Soliman created a network of proxy militias, which constituted a crescendo of influence – and a direct challenge to the United States and its regional allies led by Saudi Arabia – from Lebanon to Iran via Syria and Iraq. Outside Vardhman, Iran nurtured allied Palestinian and Yemeni groups.
He specifically mobilized Shia Muslim military forces in Iraq, which helped crush the Islamic State, a Sunni militant group that seized control of the Syrians and Iraq swaths in 2014.
Washington, however, blames Soleimani for attacks on US forces and their allies.
The funeral runs on Tuesday in the southern home town of Kerman, Carman. His daughter Zinab Soleimani lamented in Tehran that the United States would face a “dark day” for her father’s death, “Crazy Trump,” noting that all is not over with my father’s martyrdom Will happen.”
Nuclear deal
Iran curbed tensions on Sunday by dropping all limits on its uranium enrichment, another move from commitments under a landmark agreement with major powers in 2015 that Trump abandoned in 2018.
