Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wept openly at the funeral for Gen. Qassem Soleimani. His tears give insight into how the death of the commander killed in a U.S. strike is being felt personally by the supreme leader.
In this image taken from video, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei openly weeps as he leads a prayer over the coffin of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in Iraq in a U.S. drone strike on Friday, at the Tehran University campus, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, Jan. 6, 2020.
The funeral showcased the depth of the bond Khamenei had with the slain general and gave insight into how Soleimani’s death is being felt personally by the supreme leader. It could also impact how Khamenei responds to the United States. In Iran, Soleimani was a lionized figure who embodied Iran’s lethal reach in the face of crushing U.S. pressure. He was a, overseeing Iran’s proxy militias abroad, ranging from Hezbollah in Lebanon to armed factions in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. In Iraq, that meant directing the country’s mostly Shiite paramilitaries, including in the fight alongside the U.S. against Sunni extremists like the Islamic State group.
In one such photograph from 2018, Khamenei, seated on an elevated platform, leans down and kisses Soleimani’s forehead. In another image from 2017, Khamenei is seenUnlike other military commanders in the Revolutionary Guard Corps., the 62-year-old general answered only to the 80-year-old Khamenei. “Of course not any time soon,” Khamenei said, adding the “Islamic Republic needs him for years to come.”
And in death, Soleimani has received what no man before him has in modern Iran. His funeral processions have been spread over several days and cities, marking the first time Iran has ever honored a single man with a multi-city ceremony. Not even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic, received such a processional with his death in 1989.the slain general’s standing and relationship with Khamenei is not as easy to replace.
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