Iranian state television is reporting that a stampede has erupted at a funeral procession for a general slain in U.S. airstrike and that there are an unspecified number of people killed or injured. State TV's online report on Tuesday says the incident happened in Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani's hometown of Kerman, in southeastern Iran. The TV quoted the head of Iran's emergency medical services, Pirhossein Koulivand, saying there had been people injured and killed. He did not offer any casualty figures. A procession in Tehran on Monday drew over 1 million people in the Iranian capital, crowding both main thoroughfares and side streets. The outpouring of grief was an unprecedented honor for a man viewed by Iranians as a national hero for his work leading the Guard's expeditionary Quds Force. The U.S. blames him for the killing of American troops in Iraq and accused him of plotting new attacks just before his death Friday in a drone strike near Baghdad's airport. Soleimani also led forces in Syria backing President Bashar Assad in a long war, and he also served as the point man for Iranian proxies in countries like Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.
