Funeral for Iran's top brass

IRAN held a state funeral service yesterday for around 60 people, including its military commanders, killed in its war with Israel, after Tehran’s top diplomat condemned Donald Trump’s comments on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “unacceptable”.

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The proceedings took place in the capital, Tehran, as government offices and many businesses were closed on Saturday for the occasion. Thousands of people donned black clothes and held Iranian flags and pictures of the slain military commanders.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, along with other senior government officials and military commanders — including Esmail Qaani, head of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards - attended the event.

Senior advisor to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Shamkhani, who was targeted and wounded during the war, also took part in the ceremony.

A patriotic eulogy blared from loudspeakers as the procession set out across the sprawling metropolis toward Azadi (Freedom) Square, 11km away.

Among the dead is Mohammad Bagheri, a major general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the second-in-command of the armed forces after the Iranian leader. He will be buried alongside his wife and daughter, a journalist for a local media outlet, all killed in an Israeli attack.

Nuclear scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, also killed in the attacks, will be buried with his wife.