Baghdad: A huge crowd of mourners gathered in Iraq's capital Baghdad on Saturday to participate in a funeral procession for the Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a US airstrike ordered by President Donald Trump.
The crowd in Baghdad was also there to mourn the death of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Front (PMF), who was also killed in the Friday airstrike near the Baghdad International Airport, the BBC reported. The gathering in Baghdad on Saturday marked the beginning of days of mourning for Soleimani, who was the head of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
Mourners started gathering in Baghdad from early Saturday morning, ahead of the start of the procession, waving Iraqi and militia flags and chanting "death to America".
The procession then snaked though the streets, some carrying portraits of Soleimani and some of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran: US asked for proportionate response to killing
Tehran: Washington asked Tehran to respond "in proportion" after US forces killed top Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards said. After the attack, the Americans "resorted to diplomatic measures... on Friday morning", Rear-Admiral Ali Fadavi told state TV that night. They "even said that if you want to get revenge, get revenge in proportion to what we did", he said, quoted on the broadcaster's website.
