Iran officially held the funeral for the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, in Tehran Jan. 6. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, flanked by President Hassan Rouhani and judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, conducted the prayer service. Various processions across Iran were held in the days leading up to the funeral, drawing the largest crowds Iran has seen since the 1989 funeral of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

While the large outpouring of mourners across a country that had just witnessed some of its most severe protests less than two months ago has caught many Iran observers by surprise, how Iran will galvanize this sentiment and how it will respond to the US assassination of Soleimani is still being debated.

Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, told Ali Mamlouk, special security adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, “Our response to this crime will certainly be militarily, but it will not be limited to military actions.” Mamlouk is in Tehran as Assad’s representative for Soleimani’s funeral.

Shamkhani added, “After committing this crime with lies, the Americans tried to portray the people of this region as being happy over the martyrdom of these two warriors. But the wave of angry people in mourning … revealed their big lie.” Along with Soleimani and 10 others was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units, which is also known as Hashid Shaabi. Shamkhani added, “The blood of these martyrs made the unity in Iran and Iraq a hundredfold.”