Iran’s parliament held an emergency session Sunday after the killing of military general Qassem Soleimani — with lawmakers repeatedly chanting “Death to America!” in unison.
As tens of thousands of mourners flooded the streets to carry the slain general’s casket on a dayslong, multi-city funeral procession, the nation’s leaders made the chilling display of defiance as the session opened.
Almost all of the 290 members were seen in video of the session standing in the middle of the chamber loudly chanting “Death to America” while many angrily pumped their fists in the air.
“Mr. Trump! This is the voice of the Iranian nation. Listen!” parliament speaker Ali Larijani said as lawmakers continued to chant.
Larijani accused American officials as following “the law of the jungle” in the airstrike killing of its top military general.
A spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, also threatened the US by saying Iran and the “resistance front will decide the time, place and way” revenge will be carried out.
The chilling display from lawmakers came as Iranians continued to flood the streets to carry Soleimani’s casket through two cities Sunday as part of a grand funeral procession across the Islamic Republic.
After thousands mourned Saturday in Baghdad, authorities flew the general’s body to the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz.
An honor guard stood by early Sunday as mourners carried the flag-draped coffins of Soleimani and others slain beside him in Friday’s deadly airstrike.
The caskets then moved slowly through streets choked with mourners wearing black, beating their chests and carrying posters with Soleimani’s portrait.
Demonstrators also carried red Shiite flags, which traditionally both symbolize the spilled blood of someone unjustly killed and call for their deaths to be avenged.
His casket was later taken to Mashhad, and will also be taken to Tehran and Qom on Monday for public mourning processions, followed by his hometown of Kerman for burial Tuesday.
It is the first time Iran honored a single man with a multi-city ceremony. Not even the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, received such a processional with his death in 1989.
Soleimani on Monday will lie in state at Tehran’s famed Musalla mosque as the revolutionary leader did before him.
With Post wires