Stampede during funeral for Iranian commander kills 35 – report

A stampede among mourners during the funeral ceremony for a slain Iranian commander in the southeastern city of Kerman killed 35 people and injured 48 on Tuesday, media reports.

According to the Young Journalists Club website, which is affiliated to state television, tens of thousands of mourners poured on to the streets of Kerman for the funeral of Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq on Friday.

His body had been taken to Iraqi and Iranian cities before arriving in Kerman for burial.

The killing of Soleimani, who was responsible for building up Tehran’s network of proxy forces across the Middle East, has prompted mass mourning in Iran.

U.S. and Iranian warnings of new strikes and retaliation have also stoked concerns about a broader Middle East conflict and led to calls in the U.S. Congress for legislation to stop U.S. President Donald Trump going to war with Iran.

“We will take revenge, a hard and definitive revenge,” the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Hossein Salami, told tens of thousands of mourners in Soleimani’s hometown of Kerman.

Many chanted “Death to America” and waved the Iranian flag.

Soleimani’s body has been taken through Iraqi and Iranian cities since Friday’s strike, with huge crowds of mourners filling the streets.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and military commanders have said Iranian retaliation for the U.S. action on Friday would match the scale of Soleimani’s killing but that it would be at a time and place of Tehran’s choosing.

Representatives from those forces, including the Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, attended the funeral.

In spite of its strident rhetoric, analysts say Iran will want to avoid any conventional conflict with the U.S. but assymetric strikes, such as sabotage or other more limited military actions, are more likely.

Trump has promised strikes on 52 Iranian targets, including cultural sites, if Iran retaliates, although U.S. officials sought to downplay his reference to cultural targets.

On Sunday, Iraq’s parliament, dominated by lawmakers representing Muslim Shi’ite groups, passed a resolution calling for all foreign troops to leave the country.