BAGHDAD: Thousands of Iraqis chanting “Death to America” joined the funeral procession Saturday for Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, both killed in a US air strike.
The cortege set off around Kadhimiya, a Shiite pilgrimage district of Baghdad, before heading to the Green Zone government and diplomatic district where a state funeral was to be held attended by top dignitaries.
Iraq PM attends mourning
Adel Abdel Mahdi joined Muhandis associate Hadi al-Ameri, Shiite cleric Ammar al-Hakim, former premier Nuri al-Maliki and other pro-Iran figures in a large crowd.
The dignitaries then accompanied the coffins into the Green Zone for an official ceremony.
In all, 10 people — five Iraqis and five Iranians — were killed in Friday morning’s US strike on their motorcade just outside Baghdad airport.
The dead were brought to Kadhimiya on the back of pick-up trucks in coffins shrouded in their national flags.
The convoy snaked its way though a sea of black-clad mourners, some of whom carried portraits of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The bodies of the Iranians will then be flown on Saturday evening to Iran, which has declared three days of mourning for Soleimani.
Their deaths sparked fears of a looming proxy war between Iran and the United States on Iraqi soil, further fanned by a new strike on pro-Iran factions on Saturday.