Thousands of people gathered in the streets of Baghdad on Saturday morning for a funeral procession to mourn Iran's slain top general Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leaders killed in a targeted US airstrike a day earlier.
The funeral procession began at the Imam Kadhim shrine in Baghdad, one of the most venerated sites in Shiite Islam, and solemn mourners proceeded to march alongside military vehicles.
Many of the mourners dressed in black and carried Iraqi flags as well as flags of militias that are loyal to Soleimani, who was the head of Iran's elite Quds Force.
In attendance was Iraq's prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, as well as Shiite cleric Ammar al-Hakim and other pro-Iran figures in a large crowd surrounding the coffins. Mourners were also grieving Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a senior Iraqi militia commander who was one of nine others killed in the same strike.
The Iranian ambassador to the UN described the killing as an act of war, US media reported. Speaking to CNN after the attack, Majid Takht Ravanchi said it "in fact was an act of war on the part of the United States and against the Iranian people."
Soleimani was known as a spymaster, military operative and diplomat, as well as the architect of Iran's regional security strategy. He was responsible for mobilizing militias across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, including in the war against the "Islamic State".
0 Yorumlar