Iranian general Qassem Soleimani finally buried after 56 die in stampede

Iran finally buried Iran­ian Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani after a stampede at his funeral killed 56 people.

The coffins of Qassem Soleimani and others killed by a US drone strike are carried through mourners in Kerman, Iran. Picture: AP

Iran finally buried Iran­ian Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Soleimani after a stampede at his funeral killed 56 people.

Officials lowered the shroud-wrapped remains of Soleimani into the ground in his home town of Kerman in southeastern Iran just before 6am on Wednesday (1.30pm AEDT). Mourners at the grave wailed.

A procession in Tehran on Monday had drawn more than one million people in the Iranian capital, crowding both main avenues­ and side streets.

There was no information about what set off the crush in the packed streets, and online videos showed only its aftermath: people lying apparently lifeless, their faces covered by clothing, emerg­ency crews performing CPR on the fallen, and onlookers wailing and crying out to God.

“Unfortunately as a result of the stampede, some of our com­pat­riots have been injured and some have been killed during the funeral processions,” said the head of Iran’s emergency medical ­services, Pirhossein Koulivand.

Soleimani’s burial was delayed because of concerns about the huge crowd at the cemetery, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.

A smaller stampede at the 1989 funeral for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini killed at least eight ­people and injured hundreds.

Hossein Salami, Soleimani’s successor as leader of the Revolutionary Guard, earlier addressed a crowd of supporters in Kernan and vowed to avenge Soleimani.

“We tell our enemies that we will retaliate but if they take another­ action we will set ablaze the places that they like and are passionate about,” Salami said.

“Death to Israel!” the crowd shouted in response, referring to one of Iran’s longtime regional foes.

Salami praised Soleimani’s work, describing him as essential to backing Palestinian groups, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Shia militias in Iraq and Syria. As a ­martyr, Soleimani represented an even greater threat to Iran’s ­enemies, Salami said.

Soleimani was laid to rest between­ the graves of Enayatollah Talebizadeh and Mohammad Hossein Yousef Elahi, two former Revolutionary Guard comrades who were killed in Iran’s 1980s war with Iraq.

They died in Operation Dawn 8, in which Soleimani also took part.

That 1986 amphibious assaul­t cut Iraq off from the Persian Gulf and led to the end of the war that killed one million people.

The funeral processions in major cities over three days have been an unprecedented honour for Soleimani, seen by Iranians as a ­national hero for his work leading the guard’s expeditionary Quds Force.

AP