Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei looks at the coffins of members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who were killed in Damascus, during a funeral ceremony in Tehran, Iran April 4, 2024. (Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS)
The Iranian leadership and several senior commanders of its proxy militias were spotted attending the annual Quds Day parade in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Friday, shortly before the state funeral for seven senior Iranian officers killed in the alleged Israeli strike near Iran’s Damascus embassy earlier this week.
Thousands of marchers carried pictures of the killed officers, banners with slogans such as “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” and pictures of the Iranian regime’s founder, Ruhollah Khomeini.
Among the attendants were also Iran’s current supreme leader Ali Khamenei, several of his family members, as well as the high command of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who lost two Brigadier Generals in the alleged Israeli attack.
The IRGC’s chief commander, Hossein Salami, warned during his speech that no attack on “our sacred regime will remain unanswered.”
“The Zionist regime is being kept alive by America’s artificial respiration, and it is breathing in the special political, security, and mental intensive care unit of America. Whenever the West’s artificial respiration apparatus is removed from the Zionist regime’s nose, it will wither and collapse, and this is close, not far,” he insisted.
“This year’s Quds Day will be a global uproar against the usurping Zionist regime,” Iran’s leader Ali Khamenei had said earlier this week.
“In previous years, Quds Day [rallies] were held only in Islamic countries. But this year, it’s highly likely that Quds Day [rallies] are organized in non-Islamic countries as well, with glory, God willing.
An IRGC spokesman claimed that pro-Palestine rallies were being held in over 2,000 locations across Iran, according to Iran International.
The report added that almost the complete leadership of the country was in attendance at the parade, which marks Israel’s destruction as a cornerstone of the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy.
Tasked with this aim is the Quds Force, the IRGC’s arm for special operations and worldwide terrorism that was specifically created to one day “liberate” Jerusalem, called al-Quds in Persian and Arabic.
Its commander Ismail Qaani, who replaced its longtime leader Qasem Soleimani after he was killed by the U.S. in 2020, was also in attendance.
מפקד כוח קודס האיראני קאאני בלוק הפלילי ביום ירושלים האיראני בטהראן pic.twitter.com/LQtLBegZyg
— roi kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) April 5, 2024
The two killed senior Quds Force generals, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, and his deputy, Mohammad Haj Rahimi, commanded the unit responsible for coordinating Iran’s activities against Israel from Lebanon and Syria.
Notably, the leaders of two important Iranian proxy militias were also photographed attending the Quds Day parade. Ziyad al-Nakhalah is the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the second major Palestinian Islamic terror group next to Hamas.
זיאד נח’אלה, מנהיג הגא’פ ואבו פדכ מחמדאוי, מפקד כוחות הגיוס העממי, מיליצייה עיראקית, בתהלוכה לציון יום ‘אל קודס’ האיראני, בטהראן.
יום אל קודס מצויין בכל יום שישי אחרון ברמדאן. pic.twitter.com/iIrfg1BImT
— Baruch Yedid, ברוך ידיד, باروخ يديد (@BaruchYedid) April 5, 2024
Pictured next to him was Abu Fadak Al-Mohammedawi, the leader of the Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), or Hashd al-Shaabi, an umbrella group for the Iran-backed militias in Iraq.
His predecessor Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was killed together with Soleimani in a strike ordered by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Footage from Iran also showed thousands attending the funeral of the seven killed IRGC officers, whose caskets were carried by trucks with the Persian inscription, “Martyrs on the way to Jerusalem.”
בדרכם האחרונה: ארונותיהם של שבעת המחוסלים האיראנים בדמשק הגיעו לכיכר פרדוסי בטהראן ברקע תהלוכות יום ירושלים האיראני שהחלו. מתברר שבכיר המחוסלים, זאהדי, יובא לקבורה סופית רק מחר בעיר אספהאן pic.twitter.com/5scQavwmKl
— roi kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) April 5, 2024
Zahedi is the highest-ranking Iranian official to be eliminated since the U.S. killing of Soleimani. Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has since repeatedly threatened Israel.
“The evil Zionist regime will be punished by our courageous men. We will make them regret this and other crimes like it, by God’s power and strength,” Khamenei said.
Media reports said that the American CIA had warned Israel about a possible Iranian response this weekend, on which Quds Day, the IRGC officer’s funeral, and the last Ramadan Friday all coincide.
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