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IRAN HOLDS STATE FUNERAL FOR TOP COMMANDERS, SCIENTISTS KILLED BY ISRAEL
A state funeral service is under way in Iran for about 60 people, including military commanders, killed in Israeli attacks, with thousands joining the ceremony in the capital, Tehran.
State TV showed footage of people donning black clothes, waving Iranian flags and holding pictures of the slain head of the Revolutionary Guard, other top commanders and nuclear scientists in the ceremony that started at 8am (04:30 GMT) on Saturday.
The United States had carried out strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites last weekend, joining its ally Israel’s bombardments of Iran in the 12-day war launched on June 13.
Both Israel and Iran claimed victory in the war that ended with a ceasefire on Tuesday, with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei downplaying the US strikes, claiming Trump had “exaggerated events in unusual ways”, and rejecting US claims that Iran’s nuclear programme had been set back by decades.
The coffins of the Guard’s chief General Hossein Salami, the head of the Guard’s ballistic missile programme, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, and others were driven on trucks along the capital’s Azadi Street as people in the crowds chanted: “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
Salami and Hajizadeh were both killed on the first day of the war, which Israel said was meant to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme.
Mohammad Bagheri, a major-general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, as well as top nuclear scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi were also killed in Israeli attacks.
Saturday’s ceremonies were the first public funerals for top commanders since the ceasefire, and Iranian state television reported that they were for 60 people in total, including four women and four children.
Authorities closed government offices to allow public servants to attend the ceremonies.
