Hundreds of thousands mourn top Iranian military commanders and scientists killed in Israeli strikes
The caskets of Guard chief Gen. Hossein Salami, the head of the Guard's ballistic missile program, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh and others were driven on trucks along the capital's Azadi Street as people in the crowds chanted: "Death to America" and "Death to Israel."
Salami and Hajizadeh were both killed on the first day of the war, June 13, as Israel launched a war it said was meant to destroy Iran's nuclear program, specifically targeting military commanders, scientists and nuclear facilities.
State media reported more than 1 million people turned out for the funeral procession, which was impossible to independently confirm, but the dense crowd packed the main Tehran thoroughfare along the entire 4.5 kilometer (nearly 3 mile) route.
There was no immediate sign of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the state broadcast of the funeral. Khamenei, who has not made a public appearance since before the outbreak of the war, has in past funerals held prayers for fallen commanders over their caskets before the open ceremonies, later aired on state television.
Top officials are among the mourners
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was on hand, and state television reported that Gen. Esmail Qaani, who heads the foreign wing of the Revolutionary Guard, the Quds Force, and Gen. Ali Shamkhani were also among the mourners.
Shamkhani, an adviser to Khamenei who was wounded in the first round of Israel's attack and hospitalized, was shown in a civilian suit leaning on a cane in an image distributed on state television's Telegram channel.
Later on Saturday night, state TV showed Shamkhani saying he and other generals knew they would be targets before Israel initiated the war earlier this month. The morning of the strike on his residence, he said he woke up for dawn prayer when suddenly everything around him had become ruins. He initially thought that an earthquake had taken place, and it took search and rescue teams at least three hours to find him in the rubble.
Shamkhani said most of his injuries were internal, including a chest fracture.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard was created after its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Since it was established, it has evolved from a paramilitary, domestic security force to a transnational force that has come to the aid of Tehran's allies in the Middle East, from Syria and Lebanon to Iraq. It operates in parallel to the country's existing armed forces and controls Iran's arsenal of ballistic missiles, which it has used to attack Israel twice during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Over 12 days before a ceasefire was declared on Tuesday, Israel claimed it killed around 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, while hitting eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites. More than 1,000 people were killed, including at least 417 civilians, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists group.
Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted, but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people.
Saturday's ceremonies were the first public funerals for top commanders since the ceasefire, and Iranian state television reported that they were for 60 people in total, including four women and four children.
Crowd expresses feelings of anger and defiance
Authorities closed government offices to allow public servants to attend the ceremonies.
Many in the crowd expressed feelings of anger and defiance.
"This is not a ceasefire, this is just a pause," said 43-year-old Ahmad Mousapoor, waving an Iranian flag. "Whatever they do, we will definitely give a crushing response."
State media published images of an open grave plot at Tehran's sprawling Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery where army chief of staff, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, who was killed on the first day of the war, was to be buried beside his brother, a Guards commander killed during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.
Many of the others were to be buried in their hometowns.
The Iranian judiciary's Mizan news agency confirmed that the top prosecutor at the notorious Evin prison had been killed in an Israeli strike on Monday.
It reported that Ali Ghanaatkar, whose prosecution of dissidents, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, led to widespread criticism by human rights groups, would be buried at a shrine in Qom.
Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. But Israel views it as an existential threat and said its military campaign was necessary to prevent Iran from building an atomic weapon.
Khamenei's last public appearance was June 11, two days before hostilities with Israel broke out, when he met with Iranian parliamentarians.
On Thursday, however, he released a pre-recorded video, in his first message since the end of the war, filled with warnings and threats directed toward the United States and Israel, the Islamic Republic's longtime adversaries.
The 86-year-old downplayed U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites as having not achieved "anything significant" and claimed victory over Israel.
Questions remain over possible talks
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, Rafael Grossi, has characterized the damage done by American bunker-buster bombs to Iran's Fordo nuclear site, which was built into a mountain, as "very, very, very considerable."
U.S. President Donald Trump has said that he expects Iran to open itself to international inspection to verify it doesn't restart its nuclear program, and White House officials have said they expect to restart talks soon with Iran, though nothing has been scheduled.
Iran's parliament has voted to suspend collaboration with Grossi's International Atomic Energy Agency for the time being.
In a post on X on Saturday, Araghchi indicated that Iran might be open to talks, but criticized Trump's remarks from Friday in which the president scoffed at a warning from Khamenei against further U.S. attacks, saying Iran "got beat to hell."
"If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran's Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei and stop hurting his millions of heartfelt followers," Araghchi wrote.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NHK
8 hours ago
- NHK
NHK finds aid not reaching all residents in Gaza
One week has passed since the Israeli military started a limited pause in its activity in the Gaza Strip from July 27, to allow more aid from the United Nations and other organizations to reach the area. Humanitarian aid deliveries by truck and airdrop have continued during this period, but NHK has found that sufficient supplies are not reaching all residents in the enclave. More than 200 truckloads of supplies have reportedly been delivered each day. NHK's Gaza-based crew saw more street stalls and shoppers in central Gaza's Nuseirat on July 30 compared with about three weeks ago on July 11. Some vendors were selling beans from the same bags in which they had been delivered as aid supplies. One vendor said much of the beans and rice he was selling came from aid delivered by the United Nations and others. He said that he had bought items from someone else and was reselling them with markups. The vendor said he is supporting his family this way. He said he does not feel good about reselling, and he wants food prices to return to normal. One liter of cooking oil that used to cost about 2.7 dollars before the conflict began now costs about 18 dollars. Soaring prices of food have made it unaffordable for many residents. Israeli media say aid supplies are sometimes stolen or resold. A woman who came to buy food said fruit was too expensive, and she could only buy flour needed to survive. She said serious starvation was happening in Gaza, and that she felt as if she was waiting for her turn to starve to death. Countries including the United Arab Emirates and Jordan have been flying transport planes to airdrop aid supplies tied to parachutes on a daily basis. People on the ground fight over the dropped supplies, and many are unable to get any. A man said that providing aid this way was humiliating, and he wants entry checkpoints to Gaza to reopen so that people can receive supplies in a dignified way.
The Mainichi
11 hours ago
- The Mainichi
From Laos to Brazil, Trump's tariffs leave a lot of losers. But even the winners will pay a price
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump's tariff onslaught this week left a lot of losers -- from small, poor countries like Laos and Algeria to wealthy U.S. trading partners like Canada and Switzerland. They're now facing especially hefty taxes -- tariffs -- on the products they export to the United States starting Aug. 7. The closest thing to winners may be the countries that caved to Trump's demands -- and avoided even more pain. But it's unclear whether anyone will be able to claim victory in the long run -- even the United States, the intended beneficiary of Trump's protectionist policies. "In many respects, everybody's a loser here,'' said Barry Appleton, co-director of the Center for International Law at the New York Law School. Barely six months after he returned to the White House, Trump has demolished the old global economic order. Gone is one built on agreed-upon rules. In its place is a system in which Trump himself sets the rules, using America's enormous economic power to punish countries that won't agree to one-sided trade deals and extracting huge concessions from the ones that do. "The biggest winner is Trump," said Alan Wolff, a former U.S. trade official and deputy director-general at the World Trade Organization. "He bet that he could get other countries to the table on the basis of threats, and he succeeded -- dramatically.'' Everything goes back to what Trump calls "Liberation Day'' -- April 2 -- when the president announced "reciprocal'' taxes of up to 50% on imports from countries with which the United States ran trade deficits and 10% "baseline'' taxes on almost everyone else. He invoked a 1977 law to declare the trade deficit a national emergency that justified his sweeping import taxes. That allowed him to bypass Congress, which traditionally has had authority over taxes, including tariffs -- all of which is now being challenged in court. Winners will still pay higher tariffs than before Trump took office Trump retreated temporarily after his Liberation Day announcement triggered a rout in financial markets and suspended the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to give countries a chance to negotiate. Eventually, some of them did, caving to Trump's demands to pay what four months ago would have seemed unthinkably high tariffs for the privilege of continuing to sell into the vast American market. The United Kingdom agreed to 10% tariffs on its exports to the United States -- up from 1.3% before Trump amped up his trade war with the world. The U.S. demanded concessions even though it had run a trade surplus, not a deficit, with the UK for 19 straight years. The European Union and Japan accepted U.S. tariffs of 15%. Those are much higher than the low single-digit rates they paid last year -- but lower than the tariffs he was threatening (30% on the EU and 25% on Japan). Also cutting deals with Trump and agreeing to hefty tariffs were Pakistan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. Even countries that saw their tariffs lowered from April without reaching a deal are still paying much higher tariffs than before Trump took office. Angola's tariff, for instance, dropped to 15% from 32% in April, but in 2022 it was less than 1.5%. And while Trump administration cut Taiwan's tariff to 20% from 32% in April, the pain will still be felt. "20% from the beginning has not been our goal, we hope that in further negotiations we will get a more beneficial and more reasonable tax rate," Taiwan's president Lai Ching-te told reporters in Taipei Friday. Trump also agreed to reduce the tariff on the tiny southern African kingdom of Lesotho to 15% from the 50% he'd announced in April, but the damage may already have been done there. Bashing Brazil, clobbering Canada, shellacking the Swiss Countries that didn't knuckle under -- and those that found other ways to incur Trump's wrath -- got hit harder. Even some poorer countries were not spared. Laos' annual economic output comes to $2,100 per person and Algeria's $5,600 -- versus America's $75,000. Nonetheless, Laos got rocked with a 40% tariff and Algeria with a 30% levy. Trump slammed Brazil with a 50% import tax largely because he didn't like the way it was treating former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing trial for trying to lose his electoral defeat in 2022. Never mind that the U.S. has exported more to Brazil than it's imported every year since 2007. Trump's decision to plaster a 35% tariff on longstanding U.S. ally Canada was partly designed to threaten Ottawa for saying it would recognize a Palestinian state. Trump is a staunch supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Switzerland was clobbered with a 39% import tax -- even higher than the 31% Trump originally announced on April 2. "The Swiss probably wish that they had camped in Washington'' to make a deal, said Wolff, now senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "They're clearly not at all happy.'' Fortunes may change if Trump's tariffs are upended in court. Five American businesses and 12 states are suing the president, arguing that his Liberation Day tariffs exceeded his authority under the 1977 law. In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade, a specialized court in New York, agreed and blocked the tariffs, although the government was allowed to continue collecting them while its appeal wend its way through the legal system, and may likely end up at the U.S. Supreme Court. In a hearing Thursday, the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sounded skeptical about Trump's justifications for the tariffs. "If (the tariffs) get struck down, then maybe Brazil's a winner and not a loser,'' Appleton said. Paying more for knapsacks and video games Trump portrays his tariffs as a tax on foreign countries. But they are actually paid by import companies in the U.S. who try to pass along the cost to their customers via higher prices. True, tariffs can hurt other countries by forcing their exporters to cut prices and sacrifice profits -- or risk losing market share in the United States. But economists at Goldman Sachs estimate that overseas exporters have absorbed just one-fifth of the rising costs from tariffs, while Americans and U.S. businesses have picked up the most of the tab. Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Ford, Best Buy, Adidas, Nike, Mattel and Stanley Black & Decker, have all hiked prices due to U.S. tariffs "This is a consumption tax, so it disproportionately affects those who have lower incomes,'' Appleton said. "Sneakers, knapsacks ... your appliances are going to go up. Your TV and electronics are going to go up. Your video game devices, consoles are going to up because none of those are made in America.'' Trump's trade war has pushed the average U.S. tariff from 2.5% at the start of 2025 to 18.3% now, the highest since 1934, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University. And that will impose a $2,400 cost on the average household, the lab estimates. "The U.S. consumer's a big loser," Wolff said.
The Mainichi
12 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Protesters in Bangkok demand resignation of court-suspended prime minister following deadly conflict
BANGKOK (AP) -- Protesters rallied Saturday in the Thai capital to demand the resignation of court-suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and in support of the armed forces following a violent border dispute with Cambodia that killed more than three dozen people and displaced over 260,000. Gathered at Bangkok's Victory Monument despite soaring temperatures, many sang patriotic songs and listened to speeches denouncing Paetongtarn and her father, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister, and voiced their backing of the country's army, which has always retained substantial power in the Southeast Asian country. Police said there were about 2,000 protesters by mid-afternoon, though more were expected to join as the temperature cooled. Some locals accuse Paetongtarn and her family of allowing the conflict -- which stretches back decades with both sides claiming pockets of land near the shared border -- to escalate due to their close ties with Cambodia's former prime minister, Hun Sen. A court suspended Paetongtarn last month after Hun Sen, still a major power in his own country, leaked a phone call in which she she called him "uncle" and appeared to denigrate a Thai general, angering many. The most recent clashes ended with an uneasy Malaysian-brokered ceasefire on July 29. "Ung Ing, you need to leave," said one well-known conservative columnist and protester, Jittakorn Bussaba, using Paetongtarn 's nickname. "Because there's blood on your hands. People have died because of you," he said from the stage to general applause. "Ung Ing has damaged the country. Everyone needs to help out," said 58-year-old Ammorn Khunthong. "Thaksin and his family should not run or command this country anymore." There were many familiar faces from a conservative, pro-royalist group once known as the Yellow Shirts, longtime foes of Paetongtarn's father, who was toppled in a military coup in 2006. Thaksin, a billionaire tycoon, entered politics by founding his own political party and buying the loyalty of local political bosses nationwide. He was often accused of bullying critics and not separating his business dealings from those of the government. Yellow Shirts rallies also helped oust the elected government of Thaksin's sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, in a 2014 coup. The army in Thailand plays a major role in politics and has staged 13 successful coups since the country became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.
