Thousands of mourners gathered in Tehran’s central Imam Hossein Marg to pay their respects to Raji Mousavi, a senior commander of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, who was killed in an Israeli attack three days ago. According to the AFP news agency, the crowd chanted anti-Israel and anti-American slogans, marking a time of heightened regional tensions over the Israel-Hamas conflict since early October.
Mousavi, the senior commander of the foreign affairs department of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corpus, was killed near Damascus suburb of Sayeda Zeinab, the capital of Syria, in an Israeli missile attack, according to Iranian state media Tasnim news agency.
Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, vowed that Israel will definitely face consequences for this crime.
The Israeli military, which has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets linked to Iran in recent years in war-torn Syria, has declined to comment on the matter to foreign media.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met Mousavi’s family on Thursday and paid his last respects by standing in front of the body of the slain general and praying. Many of the mourners waved yellow flags emblazoned with the message ‘I am your opponent’, a symbol of Israel.
Guard chief Hossein Salami hailed Mousavi as one of the most experienced and effective IRGC commanders in the Middle East, the Axis of Resistance, an armed group linked to Tehran. Salami praised the important role of Mousavi after the death of former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020. Soleimani had been conducting the foreign operations of the Guards for more than a decade.
Sharif suggests that Israel may have killed the general, indicating an “Iranian role” in the sudden attack by the Palestinian Hamas militant group on October 7. According to Israel’s latest official statistics, about 1,400 people were killed in the attack in Israel, most of whom were civilians, and about 250 people were taken hostage.
According to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, at least 21,110 people have been killed by Israel’s continuous bombing, siege, and ground attack in Gaza. Iran, which supports Hamas financially and militarily, hailed the deadly attack as a “success” but denied direct involvement.
(With inputs from AFP)
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