TEHRAN, Jan 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A sea of black-clad Iranians on Monday
mourned the top commander killed in last week’s US drone strike that inflamed tensions across the Middle East, as NATO was set to discuss the spiralling crisis.
Iranians clutching “Down with USA” signs and portraits of their hero
Qasem Soleimani massed as supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei presided over prayers for the slain head of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force.
The targeted killing of 62-year-old Soleimani ordered by US President
Donald Trump saw the Islamic republic vow “severe revenge” before Tehran also took a further step back from the already tattered 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.
In an escalating war of words that has heightened international concern
and rattled financial markets, Trump threatened yet more “major retaliation” if Tehran hits back, including strikes on Iranian cultural sites.
Iraq’s parliament meanwhile demanded the government expel the 5,200
American troops stationed in the country in response to the Baghdad drone
attack which also killed top Iraqi military figure Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Trump has warned that a forced departure of US troops would prompt
sanctions against Iraq that would “make Iranian sanctions look somewhat
tame”.
NATO ambassadors were to hold an extraordinary meeting at Brussels
headquarters to “address the situation in the region,” said an official of
the alliance, which has been forced to suspend its training mission in Iraq.
Germany, France and Britain urged Iran to refrain from taking “further
violent actions or support for them”, or from steps that further weaken the
2015 nuclear deal.
“It is crucial now to de-escalate,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a joint statement Sunday.
“We call on all the players involved to show utmost restraint and
responsibility.”
The nuclear deal had offered Tehran relief from sanctions in return for
curbs to prevent it acquiring nuclear weapons — but Trump’s withdrawal from it last year has dramatically weakened the agreement.
Despite its latest nuclear step back on Sunday, Iran insisted it will
continue to fully cooperate with the UN agency overseeing its atomic
programme.
The European leaders also pleaded with all parties to not jeopardise the
ongoing battle against the Daesh group, which has lost its
self-proclaimed “caliphate” but whose militants remain active.
The raw emotions sparked by the US killing of Soleimani were on full
display in Tehran, where mourners formed a sea of black, dotted with red
Shiite flags and white signs, in what state television said was a “several
million-strong” turnout.
As they marched down a main artery of the Iranian capital, the mourners
chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
Khamenei appeared to cry as he prayed over the flag-draped coffins
containing the remains of Soleimani and five other “martyrs” killed in the
strike.
The supreme leader was flanked by President Hassan Rouhani and other top political and military figures as well as Soleimani’s son and the slain
general’s replacement as Quds commander, Esmail Qaani.
Soleimani was one of Iran’s most popular public figures, seen as a hero
of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
He was also the key figure behind Tehran’s alliances across a region
where Iran is in often deadly rivalry with US allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. — NNN-AGENCIES
