IRGC: Multi-City Funeral of Gen. Soleimani Attended by 25 Million

“When the body of the late General was repatriated, in five cities of Ahvaz, Mashhad, Tehran, Qom and Kerman, 25 million people took part in massive street funeral processions,” Sharif said on Tuesday.

The IRGC official added that this huge turn-out was a significant message to the US to know that “our people” are unanimously calling for confrontation against expansionist policies of the US and are urging us, “the IRGC personnel”, to act like Qassem Soleimani and defeat the US in all scenes and fields.

General Soleimani was martyred in a targeted assassination attack by US aircraft at Baghdad International Airport last Friday. Pentagon also martyred Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), or Hashad al-Shabi, five Iranian, and five Iraqi militaries.

The strike brought the United States and Iran to the brink of war, with Tehran retaliating by launching missiles at military bases in Iraq housing American troops. On Wednesday, Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at two American military bases in Iraq in retaliation for Washington’s assassination of Tehran’s elite commander.

Iranian officials branded the airstrike an “act of international terrorism” and promised retaliation. Iran has time and again warned that it will not be the initiator of any war, but reserves the right to self-defense and will give a crushing response to any act of aggression by the United States.