BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – At least 56 people were killed in a stampede in Iran on Tuesday as tens of thousands of mourners packed streets for the funeral of an Iranian military commander whose killing has plunged the Middle East into a new crisis and sparked fears of a wider war.
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the United States should anticipate retaliation from Iran over last week’s killing of elite Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq.
“I think we should expect that they will retaliate in some way, shape or form,” Esper told a news briefing at the Pentagon, adding that such retaliation could be through Iran-backed proxy groups outside of Iran or “by their own hand.”
“We’re prepared for any contingency. And then we will respond appropriately to whatever they do.”
Soleimani, a pivotal figure in orchestrating Iran’s long-standing campaign to drive U.S. forces out of Iraq, was also responsible for building up Tehran’s network of proxy armies across the Middle East.
He was a national hero to many Iranians, whether supporters of the clerical leadership or not, but viewed as a dangerous villain by Western governments opposed to Iran’s arc of influence running across the Levant and into the Gulf region.
A senior Iranian official said Tehran was considering several scenarios to avenge his death. Other senior figures have said the Islamic Republic would match the scale of the killing when it responds, but that it would choose the time and place.
“We will take revenge, a hard and definitive revenge,” the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, General Hossein Salami, told the throngs in Kerman, Soleimani’s hometown in southeastern Iran.
Soleimani’s burial went ahead after several hours of delay following the stampede, in which more than 210 people were also injured, according an emergency official quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency.
“Today because of the heavy congestion of the crowd unfortunately a number of our fellow citizens who were mourning were injured and a number were killed,” emergency medical services chief Pirhossein Kolivand told state television.
Soleimani’s body had been taken to holy Shi’ite Muslim cities in Iraq and Iran, as well as the Iranian capital, Tehran, before arriving for burial in the city cemetery’s “martyrs section”, according to the semi-official news agency ISNA.
In each place, huge numbers of people filled thoroughfares, chanting: “Death to America” and weeping with emotion. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wept as he led prayers in Tehran.
Representatives from groups including the Palestinian Islamist Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah attended funeral events in Tehran. Iran’s opponents say proxies such as those have fueled conflicts, killing and displacing people in Iraq, Syria and beyond. Tehran says any operations abroad are at the request of governments and that it offers “advisory support”.
U.S. WITHDRAWAL
Prompted by the strong public backlash over Soleimani’s killing on Iraqi soil, lawmakers in Iraq voted on Sunday to demand a removal of all foreign forces from the country.
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi has told the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad that the parliamentary resolution must be implemented. But Esper said he had not received a request from Iraq to withdraw and noted that the resolution was non-binding.
U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Monday that a leaked letter from the U.S. military to Iraq that created the impression that a U.S. withdrawal was imminent was a poorly worded draft meant only to underscore an increased movement of forces in the region.
Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday the Iraqi military joint operations command had received a letter from the U.S. Army concerning a possible U.S. withdrawal. But he said the letter’s English and Arabic language versions were not identical and so Iraq had requested clarifications.
More than 5,000 U.S. troops remain in the country along with other foreign forces as part of a coalition that has trained and backed up Iraqi security forces against the threat of Islamic State militants.
A NATO official told Reuters it would move some of its several hundred trainers out of Iraq. Canada said on Tuesday some of its 500 Iraq-based forces would be temporarily moved to Kuwait for safety reasons.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in a phone call on Tuesday to Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, urged Tehran to avoid any actions that could worsen regional tensions.
‘HISTORIC NIGHTMARE’
Friction between Iran and the United States has risen since Trump withdrew in 2018 from a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, approved by his predecessor, Barack Obama, and reimposed sanctions on Tehran slashing its vital oil exports.
Iran’s coastline runs along a Gulf oil shipping route that includes the narrow Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. officials have said Soleimani was killed because of solid intelligence indicating forces under his command planned attacks on U.S. targets in the region, although they have provided no evidence.
Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said 13 “revenge scenarios” were being considered, Fars news agency reported. Even the weakest option would prove “a historic nightmare for the Americans”, he said.
Reuters has reported that Iranian missile forces have been put on a heightened state of alert. On the U.S. side, the Pentagon has been moving thousands of additional forces into the region, including roughly 3,500 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division.
Despite its strident rhetoric, Iran will want to avoid any conventional military conflict with superior U.S. forces, analysts say.
On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump said Washington had singled out 52 Iranian sites, including ones important to Iranian culture, as targets to strike if Iran attacked Americans or U.S. assets in response to Soleimani’s death.
The suggestion, which would break international conventions and treaties, caused consternation around the world and warnings from the Pentagon that it would not take any action that would violate international law.
Trump told reporters on Tuesday he would reluctantly abide by the law.
Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Baghdad, Parisa Hafezi and Babak Dehghanpisheh in Dubai, Phil Stewart in Washington, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Steve Scherer in Ottawa and Robin Emmott in Brussels; Writing by Mark Heinrich and Sonya Hepinstall; Editing by Alex Richardson and Peter Cooney