Gen. Qasem Soleimani’s body has arrived in Iran. The national TV broadcast scenes of large crowds surrounding the slow-moving truck making its way through the southern city of Ahvaz, carrying the coffins of Soleimani and three other Iranians killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad on Friday. The body of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy leader of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), has also been brought to Iran where it will undergo DNA testing before being returned to Iraq for burial, according to Fars News.
Amid religious hymns and chants of “God is great” and “Death to America” in Arabic and Farsi, a message to Iran’s enemies was broadcast over the loudspeaker: "America, Israel and Saudi Arabia, these people have not come to mourn. We are crying for ourselves. From today anyone in this country who talks about negotiation [with the West] we will seal their mouth with mud."
“The blood that flows through our veins is a gift to our leader,” was another phrase proclaimed to the crowd in the city where less than a year and a half ago, at least 25 people were killed in an attack on a military parade. Nearly half of those killed were members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). An anti-government Arab group claimed responsibility.
From Ahvaz, the bodies will be brought to Mashhad, then to Tehran, Qom, and Kerman.
