Soleimani's death has sparked calls across Iran for revenge against Americafor a slaying that's drastically raised tensions across the Middle East.
Early Tuesday, the leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guard threatened to "set ablaze" places supported by the United States over the killing of a top Iranian general in a US airstrike last week, sparking cries from the crowd of supporters of "Death to Israel!" Hossein Salami made the pledge before a crowd of thousands gathered in a central square in Kerman before a casket carrying Soleimani's remains.
The outpouring of grief was an unprecedented honor for a man viewed by Iranians as a national hero for his work leading the Guard's expeditionary Quds Force. The US blames him for the killing of American troops in Iraq and accused him of plotting new attacks just before his death Friday in a drone strike near Baghdad's airport. Soleimani also led forces in Syria backing President Bashar Assad in a long war, and he also served as the point man for Iranian proxies in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.
His slaying already has pushed Tehran to abandon the remaining limits of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers as his successor and others vow to take revenge. In Baghdad, the parliament has called for the expulsion of all American troops from Iraqi soil, something analysts fear could allow Islamic State militants to mount a comeback.
Speaking in Kerman, Salami praised Soleimani's exploits, describing him as essential to backing Palestinian groups, Yemen's Houthi rebels and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. As a martyr, Soleimani represented an even greater threat to Iran's enemies, Salami said.
"We will take revenge. We will set ablaze where they like," Salami said, drawing the cries of "Death to Israel!"
Israel is a longtime regional foe of Iran.
According to a report on Tuesday by the semi-official Tasnim news agency, Iran has worked up 13 sets of plans for revenge for Soleimani's killing. The report quoted Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, as saying that even the weakest among them would be a "historic nightmare" for the US He declined to give any details,
"If the US troops do not leave our region voluntarily and upright, we will do something to carry their bodies horizontally out," Shamkhani said.
Iran's parliament, meanwhile, passed an urgent bill declaring the US military's command at the Pentagon and those acting on its behalf in Soleimani's killing as "terrorists," subject to Iranian sanctions. The measure appears to be an attempt to mirror a decision by President Donald Trump in April to declare the Revolutionary Guard a "terrorist organization."
The US defence Department used the Guard's designation as a terror organization in the US to support the strike that killed Soleimani. The decision by Iran's parliament, done by a special procedure to speed the bill to law, comes as officials across the country threaten to retaliate for Soleimani's killing.
The vote also saw lawmakers approve funding for the Quds Force with an additional 200 million euros, or about $224 million.
Also Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US had declined to issue him a visa to travel to New York for upcoming meetings at the United Nations. The US as the host of the UN headquarters is supposed to allow foreign officials to attend such meetings.
"This is because they fear someone will go there and tell the truth to the American people," Zarif said. "But they are mistaken. The world is not limited to New York. You can speak with American people from Tehran too and we will do that."
The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Solemani will be buried later Tuesday between the graves of Enayatollah Talebizadeh and Mohammad Hossein Yousef Elahi, two former Guard comrades. The two died in Operation Dawn 8 in Iran's 1980s war with Iraq in which Soleimani also took part, a 1986 amphibious assault that cut Iraq off from the Persian Gulf and led to the end of the bloody war that killed 1 million people.
- AP
