Mourners weep and beat chests as coffins of those killed in US drone strike pass through Baghdad

In a wide Baghdad street shaded by tall eucalyptus trees, thousands of weeping, chanting mourners thronged pick-up trucks and ambulances bearing the coffins of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani and his close Iraqi associates, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and others, killed in a US drone strike that threatens to remake the region.

Grief mingled with rage in the crowd, borne along by chants of “Oh Suleimani your blood won’t be shed in vain”, and the rhythms of a slow funeral march struck by a military band. An honour guard in long red tunics and white pith helmets escorted the dead; beyond them thousands of civilian mourners in black walked beside others in the combat fatigues of their militia units. They were gearing up to trade grieving for vengeance.

“We have been in a state of war with America for many years, but it was a quiet and soft war,” said one fighter, who gave his name as Abu Moslem. “Now after the killing … the war will take place in the open, not only against America but also against all their agents and stooges inside Iraq.”

Profile Who was Qassem Suleimani? Show Hide Qassem Suleimani, killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad, had become well known among Iranians and was sometimes discussed as a future president. Many considered Suleimani to have been the second most powerful person in Iran, behind supreme leader of Iran Ali Khamenei, but arguably ahead of President Hassan Rouhani. He was commander of the Quds Force, the elite, external wing of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the Trump administration designated as a terror organisation in April last year. He was born in Rabor, a city in eastern Iran, and forced to travel to a neighbouring city at age 13 and work to pay his father’s debts to the government of the Shah. By the time the monarch fell in 1979, Suleimani was committed to the clerical rule of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and joined the Revolutionary Guards, the paramilitary force established to prevent a coup against the newly declared Islamic Republic. Within two years, he was sent to the front to fight in the war against the invading Iraqi army. He quickly distinguished himself, especially for daring reconnaissance missions behind Iraqi lines, and the war also gave him his first contact with foreign militias of the kind he would wield to devastating effect in the decades to come. By the the time the Iraq government fell in 2003, Suleimani was the head of the Quds force and blamed for sponsoring the Shia militias who killed thousands of civilian Iraqis and coalition troops. As fighting raged on Iraq’s streets, Suleimani fought a shadow war with the US for leverage over the new Iraqi leadership. Once described by American commander David Petraeus as ‘a truly evil figure’, Suleimani was instrumental in crushing street protests in Iran in 2009. In recent months outbreaks of popular dissent in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran were again putting pressure on the crescent of influence he had spent the past two decades building. Violent crackdowns on the protests in Baghdad were blamed on militias under his influence.

Eighteen months before his death, Suleimani had issued Donald Trump a public warning, wagging his finger and dressed in olive fatigues. “You will start the war but we will end it.” Michael Safi Photograph: Mehdi Ghasemi/AFP

Earlier, the coffins had been taken to the Kadhimiya shrine in northern Baghdad, where an even larger crowd wept and beat their chests and heads. In life, Suleimani held sway over large swathes of the Middle East; his death has convulsed the region. There is mourning and rage in his homeland Iran, the crucible of his influence Iraq, and other places where his money, weapons and connections were key to propping up politicians and funding militias.

The crowd in Baghdad included many of Iran’s leading politicians and commanders, including the prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi and former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. A clutch of senior militia commanders stood surrounded by bodyguards under the multi-coloured flags of their groups.

In Gaza too, several hundred Palestinians gathered for a mourning ceremony at a tent erected in Suleimani’s honour in the heart of Gaza city, with US and Israeli flags on the ground for visitors to trample as they came in. “We are loyal to those who stood with the resistance and with Palestine,” Ismail Radwan, a Hamas official said.

But there was also celebration and relief among those who feared Suleimani, or lived through the conflicts he managed ruthlessly over the past two decades, from Syria to Yemen. A thousand kilometres from Baghdad, in opposition held areas of Syria’s northern Idlib province, children drew placards thanking US president Donald Trump for ordering the deadly attack, and handed out sweets to celebrate the demise of the man they blamed for death and devastation.

After Suleimani, Iran will hit back hard – possibly on multiple fronts Read more

“When I received the news of Suleimani’s death, I felt that finally I saw justice for those who lost their lives because of him,” said Ahmad al-Shami, a 27-year-old Syrian journalist whose hometown of Madaya was besieged by Hezbollah, one of the proxy militias which answered to Suleimani.

Over two years, 80 people died of acute malnutrition, half of them children, and 235 died in shelling or trying to escape, according to activist Amjad al-Maleh, another Madaya resident.

“The Iranian militia didn’t only starve us or kill us, they also displaced us from our homes so my happiness at the death of one of Iran’s most prominent leaders is indescribable,” said al-Maleh. “The Middle East is now a better place without this person.”

In Israel too, Suleimani’s death was welcomed by many. He was a household name there, infamous for his role in the civil war in neighbouring Syria, and long regarded by the country’s military and government as one of its biggest threats.

Timeline The buildup to Qassem Suleimani's death Show Hide A rocket attack on an Iraqi military base near Kirkuk kills an American contractor and injures US and Iraqi soldiers. The US blames Shia militia group, Kata’ib Hizbullah (KH) The US conducts retaliatory airstrikes against five KH bases in Iraq and Syria, saying there had been 11 attacks against Iraqi bases hosting coalition forces in Iraq over the past two months Protesters storm the US embassy in Baghdad, trapping diplomats inside while chanting “Death to America” and slogans in support of pro-Iranian militias. At one point they breached the main gate and smashed their way into several reception rooms. The rampage was carried out with the apparent connivance of local Iraqi security forces who allowed protesters inside the highly protected Green Zone In a drone strike ordered by US president Donald Trump, the US kills Iranian general Qassem Suleimani while he was being transported from Baghdad airport

“We’ve been on the brink of war with the Iranians for a long time. It’s better that we will start the war and not them,” said Yshai Levy, 34, a software developer walking his dog nearby. “Son of a dog, (Suleimani’s) day came, and they eliminated him.”

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing Washington for years to take more aggressive action against Iran, and Israeli fighter jets have carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, including against Iranian-backed forces.

“They need to continue as much as needed and to eliminate them,” said Neorai Cohen, 25, drinking at a bar in Jerusalem’s covered market.

But in Baghdad demonstrators who have been risking their lives on the streets for months, to push for greater democracy and protest at Iranian influence on Iraqi politics, warned that the death of Suleimani might just give his agenda a posthumous bolster.

“This American attack came with the worst timing,” said one of the leaders of the demonstration. “These militias were already calling us American agents to justify their attacks on us, and we fear they will use the assassination of Suleimani as a pretext to destroy our protest.”

Additional reporting by Hussein Akoush, Oliver Holmes and Quique Kierszenbaum