Deadly stampede kills scores at burial of Iran's Soleimani
Scores of mourners died in a stampede that marred and briefly delayed a massive burial for the Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani assassinated in a US airstrike last week.
Iran's health officials have confirmed that at least 65 people died as crowds of mourners marched toward a cemetery in the city of Kerman, where the commander of Iran's Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, was laid to rest. The stampede left over 200 injured, many in serious condition, prompting officials to halt the burial for several hours.
Soleimani's body has been traveling from city to city across across Iraq and Iran since Saturday, with millions taking to the streets to bid farewell to the commander and to call for retaliation. The Iranian general and several others, including his bodyguards and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis — the deputy chief of the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite militia known as the Popular Mobilization Units — were killed Jan. 3 after a US drone attack targeted their convoy as it departed Baghdad International Airport.
The death of the powerful chief of the Quds Force — the overseas branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — has ignited an unprecedented war of words between Iran and the United States, bringing the two closer to a military conflict than any other time.
The last stop in Soleimani's funeral was his hometown, the southern city of Kerman. IRGC commander Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami addressed the ceremony, threatening the United States with "harsh" revenge that would make Washington "regret" the assassination. "Muslims will leave no safe place for America," the hard-line commander said, suggesting that an Iranian retaliation could be spearheaded by a widespread network of regional proxies that Soleimani's Quds Force has boosted and expanded over the years.
