Slain Iranian general buried, army chief blames U.S.
TEHRAN, April 12 (AFP) - Iran's political leaders joined thousands of
mourners Monday for the funeral of a top general assassinated in an attack
claimed by the opposition as the army's chief of staff blamed the United
States for the slaying.
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, parliamentary speaker
Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and other
top officials were among thousands at the funeral of Brigadier General
Ali Sayad Shirazi, murdered Saturday outside his Tehran home.
President Mohammad Khatami and his cabinet director Mohammad-Ali Abtahi
were also present.
Shirazi's coffin, covered in flowers as well as the Iranian flag, was
carried by soldiers before being passed along into the angry crowd.
Mourners struck themselves in the heads and chests as a sign of sorrow,
and shouted slogans against the United States and the Iraq-based opposition
People's Mujahedeen, which claimed the killing.
Khamenei, who is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces, recited
prayers in memory of the officer, whom he had just promoted the week before.
Meanwhile army chief of staff General Mohammad Firuz Abadi blamed Washington
for the slaying in a speech at the services.
"The United States must know that the mercenaries' bullets have
deepened the Iranian people's hatred of the Great Satan," he said.
Abadi noted that the murder coincided with the anniversary of the rupture
in diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington on April 9, 1980,
following the hostage taking at the US embassy here.
"This assassination has only further isolated the United States,"
he said, adding: "Let those Iranians in the dark know that the security
of our society can only be guaranteed by the light of danger for the counter-revolutionaries,"
he said.
Politicians across the spectrum have denounced Shirazi's murder by the
"hypocrites," the usual term of reference for the People's Mujahedeen,
and the conservative English-language Tehran Times called Monday for armed
retaliaton.
Iranian forces should "immediately take the strongest action to
pound and destroy all (People's) Mujahedeen bases in Iraq," it said,
describing the group as a "cancerous tumor."
"Not only are the Mujahedeen terrorists are allowed to stay in
the Western countries, but they are extended political, financial and moral
support as well by the host countries," the daily concluded.
On Sunday the government demanded a Western clampdown on the group after
it claimed responsibility for the murder.
Khamenei slammed Western governments for "using terrorists to assassinate
revolutionaries ... in a bid to dominate the Islamic Republic," while
the foreign ministry criticised "the West's contradictory stands on
terrorism."
The Mujahedeen are on Washington's list of terrorist groups but still
maintain an office in the US capital pending an appeal against the listing.
But the National Council of the Iranian Resistance, the umbrella opposition
group led by the Mujahedeen, are not on the list and operate freely in
the United States.
On Sunday the foreign ministry summoned Iraq's charge d'affaires to
denounce the killing and warned it would "leave a negative and irreparable
impact on Tehran-Baghdad ties."
Shirazi, one of the army's top commanders and regarded as a hero for
his role in Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq, was thought to be in his 50s.
He directed many of Iran's ground offensives during the war.
He was to be buried at the Behecht-e-Zahra cemetery south of Tehran,
the resting place of many of Iran's military leaders.
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