DUBAI/BAGHDAD: Dozens of people were killed in a stampede as huge crowds of mourners gathered for the funeral of a slain military commander in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman on Tuesday, forcing his burial to be postponed, state-affiliated media reported.
Tens of thousands of people had poured onto the streets of Kerman to pay tribute to General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq on Friday. Many chanted “Death to America”.
The Young Journalists Club, which is affiliated to state television, said on its website that a stampede had broken out and 35 people were killed and 48 wounded.
ISNA news agency said the burial had been postponed as result.
Soleimani’s body had been taken to Iraqi and other Iranian cities before arriving in his hometown Kerman for burial, prompting mass outpourings of grief nationwide as the coffin was carried through streets.
In other developments on Tuesday, a senior Iranian official said Tehran was considering 13 scenarios to avenge his killing.
In Washington, the U.S. defence secretary denied reports the U.S. military was preparing to withdraw from Iraq, where Tehran has vied with Washington for influence over nearly two decades of war and unrest.
Soleimani was responsible for building up Tehran’s network of proxy armies across the Middle East and he was a key figure in orchestrating Iran’s long-standing campaign to drive U.S. forces out of its neighbour Iraq.
U.S. and Iranian warnings of new strikes and retaliation have also stoked concerns about a broader Middle East conflict and led to calls in the U.S. Congress for legislation to stop U.S. President Donald Trump going to war with Iran.
“We will take revenge, a hard and definitive revenge,” the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, General Hossein Salami, told the crowds of mourners in Kerman prior to the stampede.
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