Iran holds state funeral for slain top brass
Thousands of attendees in black clothes wave Iranian flags and hold pictures of the slain military commanders.
Photograph courtesy of Vahid Salemi/AP
TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran held a state funeral service Saturday for around 60 people, including its military commanders, killed in its war with Israel, after Tehran’s top diplomat condemned Donald Trump’s comments on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “unacceptable.”
The proceedings started at 8 a.m. local time in the capital Tehran as government offices and many businesses were closed on Saturday 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.
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 advisor to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Shamkhani, who was targeted and wounded during the war, also took part in the ceremony, using a walking cane, 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 (Revolution) Square in central Tehran, where the march began.
A patriotic eulogy blared from loudspeakers as the procession set out across the sprawling metropolis toward Azadi (Freedom) Square, 11 kilometers away.
“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 will be buried alongside his wife and daughter, a journalist for a local media outlet, all killed in an Israeli attack.
Nuclear scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, also killed in the attacks, will be buried with his wife.
Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami, who was killed on the first day of the war, will also be laid to rest after Saturday’s ceremony — which will 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.