FIFTY-SIX people were killed and more than 200 injured when a stampede erupted at a funeral procession for the top Iranian general killed in a US air strike in Iraq last week.
The stampede took place in Kerman, the home town of Revolutionary Guard General Qasem Soleimani, as the procession got under way. Videos posted online showed people lying lifeless on a road.
A procession in Tehran on Monday drew more than a million people.
Soleimani’s death has sparked calls across Iran for revenge against America and has drastically raised tensions across the Middle East.
Early yesterday, the leader of the Revolutionary Guard threatened to “set ablaze” places supported by the US over the killing, sparking cries from the crowd of supporters of “Death to Israel!”
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Hossein Salami made the pledge before a crowd of thousands gathered in a central square in Kerman before a coffin carrying Soleimani’s remains.
According to a report on Tuesday by the semi-official Tasnim news agency, Iran has worked up 13 sets of plans for revenge for Soleimani’s killing. The report quoted Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, as saying: “If the US troops do not leave our region voluntarily and upright, we will do something to carry their bodies horizontally out.”
Iran’s parliament passed an urgent bill declaring the US military’s command at the Pentagon and those acting on its behalf in Soleimani’s killing as “terrorists” subject to Iranian sanctions.
UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said “urgent measures” were being put in place to protect British nationals in the Middle East.
He said non-essential personnel had been moved out of Baghdad while Royal Navy warships and military helicopters were on heightened readiness to assist if needed.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab travelled to Brussels for talks with his European counterparts, including Emmanuel Macron of France and Germany’s Angela Merkel.
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