Above Photo: Twitter.
Gatherings to commemorate the Iranian general were held in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and a number of other countries across West Asia and the world.
As Iranians and Iraqis commemorate the three-year anniversary of Washington’s illegal assassination of Iran’s Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani and Iraq’s Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, scores of people have, over the last few days, rallied in the streets of both countries.
On 3 January, people from all over the Islamic Republic, and particularly in Soleimani’s hometown of Qanat-e Malek in Kerman province, gathered to remember the fallen commander. At Tehran’s main prayer hall, a national congress to commemorate the assassination was held and attended by several senior officials.
The following day, a scholarly congress under the title “The Global Hero of Resistance” will also be held and attended by a number of officials and figures from abroad.
Similarly, in Iraq, citizens and officials attended a ceremony in the Iraqi city of Dujail, Salaheddine province, where they paid their respects to Soleimani as well as Muhandis, who served as the deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), also known as Al-Hashd al-Shaabi.
On 2 January, a day earlier, thousands of Iraqis gathered near Baghdad International Airport to commemorate the assassination.
During the ceremony, the people of Iraq honored and expressed their appreciation for the role played by Soleimani and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), as well as Muhandis and the PMU in Iraq’s fight against ISIS.
The previous night, in the city of Damascus in Syria – where Soleimani’s presence also played a highly significant role in the scourge of extremism – scores of Syrian youths, political figures, and representatives of popular organizations held a ceremony to honor the Iranian general at the Shrine of Sayyeda Zainab.
In Aleppo – which, with the aid of Soleimani, was completely liberated from extremist groups by Syrian government forces – the tribes and nomad groups held various ceremonies and commemorations to honor the martyred general.
Gatherings and ceremonies were also held in a number of different countries, reaching as far as El Salvador and Mumbai.
Soleimani and Muhandis were assassinated by the Trump administration in an illegal drone strike on 3 January 2020 near Baghdad International Airport. Representing a gross violation of international law, the strike was condemned by several world leaders and international organizations, yet justified by President Donald Trump and his government, who claimed to have taken out “the number one terrorist in the world.”
Following his death, several million Iranians took to the streets to mourn the former head of the IRGC’s Quds Force, in what has been described by many as one of the largest funerals in Iran’s history.
The Quds Force commander has since become a highly revered, regional and even international symbol in the fight against terrorism and western hegemony.