Mourners in Military Fatigues: 'Death to America'

Thousands of mourners chanting "America is the Great Satan" marched in a funeral procession Saturday through Baghdad for Iran's top general and Iraqi militant leaders, who were killed in a US airstrike, the AP reports. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's elite Quds force and mastermind of its regional security strategy, was killed in an airstrike early Friday near the Iraqi capital's international airport. The attack has caused regional tensions to soar. The mourners, mostly men in black military fatigues, carried Iraqi flags and the flags of Iran-backed militias that are fiercely loyal to Soleimani. They were also mourning Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a senior Iraqi militia commander who was killed in the same strike.

The mourners, many of them in tears, chanted: "No, No, America," and "Death to America, death to Israel." A mourner dressed in black said the funeral is an expression of loyalty to the slain leaders. "It is a painful strike, but it will not shake us," he said. Two helicopters hovered over the procession, which was attended by Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi and leaders of Iran-backed militias. But not everyone in the Middle East was grieving: Large crowds gathered to cheer Soleimani's death in northern Syria (Washington Examiner), while people danced on the streets of Baghdad (Metro) and Iranians living in Toronto (Globe & Mail) and Los Angeles (CBS Los Angeles) expressed support for the US airstrike. (Trump says Soleimani was plotting a series of attacks.)