KARBALA, Iraq: The funeral procession for Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was killed in an Israeli air strike alongside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, began in Iraq on Monday, an AFP photographer saw.
Nilforoushan, a top commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force foreign operations arm, was killed on September 27 alongside Nasrallah in the strike on south Beirut.
The Guard Corps said on Friday that Nilforoushan’s body had been recovered from the site of the strike on the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.
His body was taken from Beirut to the central Iraqi city of Karbala, considered holy by Shia Muslims.
There it was taken to the shrine of Imam Husayn where a representative of Iraq’s top Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, led funeral prayers before a massive crowd.
Mourners chanted “death to Israel” and brandished the flags of Iran, Hezbollah and the Iraqi Shia Kataib Hezbollah armed group.
The funeral cortege then moved on to the nearby Al-Abbas shrine before leaving for another Shia holy city, Najaf.
Nilforoushan’s body is due to be sent to the Iranian holy city of Mashhad, according to Sepah news agency, which is affiliated to the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Another funeral ceremony is due to take place in Tehran’s Imam Hossein Square on Tuesday, while Nilforoushan then will be buried in his home town of Isfahan in central Iran, Sepah said.
On October 1, Iran fired some 200 missiles at Israel in retaliation for the killings of Nasrallah, Nilforoushan and Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in late July.
Israel said it carried out the Beirut strike but did not comment on Haniyeh’s death in Tehran, where he had attended the inauguration of the Islamic republic’s new president.
Israel has vowed to retaliate for the Iranian missile attack, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant saying the response would be “deadly, precise, and surprising.”