TEHRAN 5 Jan (ANA) - Mourners flooded the Iranian cities of Ahvaz and Mashhad Sunday, weeping and beating their chests in homage to top general Qasem Soleimani who was killed in a US strike in Baghdad.

 

"Death to America," they chanted as they packed Ahvaz's streets and a long bridge spanning a river in the southwestern city to receive the casket containing Soleimani's remains.

 

As Shiite chants resonated in the air, people held portraits of the man seen as a hero of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and for spearheading Iran's Middle East operations as commander of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force.

 

In the northeastern city of Mashhad, scores took to streets around the Imam Reza shrine and, addressing the US, chanted "Be afraid of your own shadow".

 

Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike Friday near Baghdad airport, shocking the Islamic republic. He was 62.

 

The attack was ordered by President Donald Trump, who said the Quds commander had been planning an "imminent" attack on US diplomats and forces in Iraq.

 

In the face of growing Iraqi anger over the strike, the country's parliament was expected to vote Sunday on whether to oust the roughly 5,200 American troops in Iraq.

 

Soleimani's assassination ratcheted up tensions between arch-enemies Tehran and Washington and sparked fears of a new Middle East war.

 

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed "severe revenge" and declared three days of mourning.

 

But Trump warned late Saturday that America was targeting 52 sites "important to Iran & Iranian culture" and would hit them "very fast and very hard" if the country attacks American personnel or assets.

 

In a series of sabre-rattling tweets, Trump said the choice of 52 targets represented the number of Americans held hostage at the US embassy in Tehran for more than a year starting in late 1979.

 

Iran's top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that "targeting cultural sites is a WAR CRIME".

 

For Iran's army chief, Trump's threat was an attempt to distract the world from Soleimani's "unjustifiable" assassination.

 

"I doubt they have the courage to initiate" a conflict, said Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi.(ANA)

FA/ANA/5 January 2020-------