Iran mourns IRGC general assassinated by Israel
Thousands massed in the Iranian capital for the funeral of senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Seyyed Razi Mousavi, three days after he was assassinated by Israel in Syria.
The crowd in Tehran’s Imam Hussein Square waved yellow flags imprinted with the message “I am your opponent” – a reference to Israel – in both Persian and Hebrew.
High-ranking military commanders and government officials were also present at the ceremony.
Israel has long fought a shadow war of assassinations and sabotage against Iran and its allies, but Mousavi’s killing in Syria came at a time of sharply heightened regional tensions over Israel’s onslaught on the Gaza Strip since October.
Some of the mourners in Tehran carried pictures of Mousavi together with the revered Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a former commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) foreign operations arm who was assassinated in a 2020 US drone strike in
Baghdad.
Iran next week will mark the fourth anniversary of the death of Soleimani, who had run the IRGC’s Quds Force for more than a decade.
Iran said an Israeli missile strike on Monday near the Syrian capital Damascus killed Mousavi, the most senior IRGC commander killed since Soleimani.
UN urged to act
Syria on Thursday said Mousavi’s “martyrdom” on its territory was part of Israel’s “aggressive policies,” official news agency SANA reported.
In letters sent by the Syrian Foreign Ministry, Damascus called on the United Nations to act against Israeli actions which might “ignite the region,” SANA said.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei earlier on Thursday met with Mousavi’s family and led a funeral prayer over the slain general’s body before it was taken to the central square.
The chief commander of the IRGC, Major General Hossein Salami, hailed Mousavi as “one of the most experienced and effective IRGC commanders in the Axis of Resistance.”
He said Iran’s revenge for Israel’s assassination of Mousavi will be nothing but annihilation of the occupying regime.