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VOA – Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei presided over prayers Monday for Qassem Soleimani as hundreds of thousands of people assembled in Tehran to mourn the top Iranian general.
Days after a U.S. airstrike killed Soleimani while he was traveling in a convoy in neighboring Iraq, the supreme leader was joined by President Hassan Rouhani and other top Iranian officials as they paid homage in the ceremony broadcast on state television.
Monday’s huge procession followed a similar one Sunday in the southwestern city of Ahvaz where black-clad marcher chanted and beat their chests in homage to Soleimani.
Iran is observing three days of mourning before Soleimani’s burial in his hometown of Kerman on Tuesday.
As head of the Quds Force, the 62-year-old Soleimani helped orchestrate Tehran’s overseas clandestine and military operations.
The Quds Force, the foreign arm of Iran’s hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States.
He was killed in a U.S. airstrike, most likely by a drone, as he traveled in a convoy of Iran-backed militia members after leaving the Baghdad airport in the early morning hours of January 3 — a strike that substantially raised tensions between Washington and Tehran.
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a deputy commander of the Iran-backed Hashd Shaabi militia in Iraq, was also killed in the attack.
Mourners marched earlier in Baghdad for Soleimani and others killed in the raid, while many anti-Iranian protesters celebrated the deaths at other sites in Iraq.
U.S. President Donald Trump said he ordered the strike on Soleimani, saying the Iranian commander had organized attacks on U.S. and Iraqi targets and that he was planning further terror actions.
Iran has promised “harsh revenge” for the U.S. attack on Soleimani, one of the most powerful military men in Iran.
