A stampede among mourners during the funeral ceremony for the slain Iranian commander in the southeastern city of Kerman killed 35 people and injured 48 on Tuesday, media reports.
According to the Young Journalists Club website, which is affiliated to state television, tens of thousands of mourners poured on to the streets of Kerman for the funeral of Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq on Friday.
The streets were packed for Soleimani's final funeral procession in his hometown of Kerman, one day after hundreds of thousands of mourners turned out for a similar procession in the capital, Tehran.
Qassem Soleimani’s final funeral procession and burial is taking place in his home town of Keman.
In a highly emotionally charged atmosphere a stampede has erupted, several people have been killed. pic.twitter.com/YkuJndzjsR— Ali Arouzi (@aliarouzi) January 7, 2020
Pirhossein Koulivand, the head of Iran’s emergency medical services, told state TV that at least 32 people had died and 190 were injured in the stampede, according to a report from The Associated Press.
Iran's semiofficial ISNA news agency said the burial had been postponed following the deaths.
Iran has promised to avenge the death of Soleimani, who was head of the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He was killed last week in a U.S. airstrike near Baghdad airport.
The killing of Soleimani, who was responsible for building up Tehran’s network of proxy forces across the Middle East, has prompted mass mourning in Iran.
U.S. and Iranian warnings of new strikes and retaliation have also stoked concerns about a broader Middle East conflict and led to calls in the U.S. Congress for legislation to stop U.S. President Donald Trump going to war with Iran.
“We will take revenge, a hard and definitive revenge,” the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Hossein Salami, told tens of thousands of mourners in Soleimani’s hometown of Kerman.
Many chanted “Death to America” and waved the Iranian flag. Soleimani’s body has been taken through Iraqi and Iranian cities since Friday’s strike, with huge crowds of mourners filling the streets.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and military commanders have said Iranian retaliation for the U.S. action on Friday would match the scale of Soleimani’s killing but that it would be at a time and place of Tehran’s choosing.
Representatives from those forces, including the Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, attended the funeral.
In spite of its strident rhetoric, analysts say Iran will want to avoid any conventional conflict with the U.S. but assymetric strikes, such as sabotage or other more limited military actions, are more likely.
President Trump has promised strikes on 52 Iranian targets, including cultural sites, if Iran retaliates, although U.S. officials sought to downplay his reference to cultural targets.
On Sunday, Iraq’s parliament, dominated by lawmakers representing Muslim Shi’ite groups, passed a resolution calling for all foreign troops to leave the country.
Source: NBCS/ Daily Trust
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