50 killed in Iran funeral stampede
Print Edition
AT least 50 people were killed and over 200 injured in a stampede as mourners packed streets for the funeral of a slain Iranian military commander in his hometown yesterday, forcing his burial to be postponed, local media reported.
Tens of thousands of people had gathered in the southeastern city of Kerman to pay tribute to General Qassem Soleimani, whose killing in a US drone strike in Iraq on Friday plunged the region into a new crisis and raised fears of a broader conflict.
Iran’s parliament also declared the US Department of Defense, the Pentagon, as “terrorist organization,” the official IRNA news agency reported.
In April 2019, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council had also declared the US Central Command forces in West Asia as “terrorist group” in retaliation for designating the IRGC as “a foreign terrorist organization” by the United States.
Yesterday’s stampede broke out amid the crush of mourners, killing at least 50 people and injuring about 227, an emergency services official told the Fars news agency.
Iran’s ISNA news agency said the burial of Soleimani had been postponed, but did not say how long any delay would last.
“Today because of the heavy congestion of the crowd unfortunately a number of our fellow citizens who were mourning were injured and many killed,” emergency medical services chief Pirhossein Kolivand told state television.
The body of Soleimani, a national hero whose death has united many Iranians, had been taken to Iraqi and Iranian cities before arriving in Kerman for burial.
In each place, huge numbers of people filled thoroughfares, chanting “Death to America” and weeping with emotion. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shed tears when leading prayers in Tehran. “We will take revenge, a hard and definitive revenge,” the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, General Hossein Salami, told the crowds in Kerman before the stampede.
Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said 13 “revenge scenarios” were being considered, Fars news agency reported. Even the weakest option would prove “a historic nightmare for the Americans,” he said.
Iran, whose coastline runs along a Gulf oil shipping route that includes the narrow Strait of Hormuz, has allied forces across the Middle East through which it can act. Representatives from those groups, including the Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, attended funeral events in Tehran.
Reuters and other media reported on Monday that the US military had sent a letter to Iraqi officials informing them that U.S. troops were preparing to leave.
“In order to conduct this task, Coalition Forces are required to take certain measures to ensure that the movement out of Iraq is conducted in a safe and efficient manner,” it said.
But US Defense Secretary Mark Esper denied there had been any decision to leave.
“I don’t know what that letter is,” he said.
US Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the letter was a “poorly worded” draft document meant only to underscore increased movement by US forces.
Washington denied a visa to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to allow him to attend a UN Security Council meeting in New York on Thursday, a US official said.
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