(27 Dec 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Najaf - 27 December 2023
1. Various of Popular Mobilization Forces carrying coffin of Iranian Gen. Razi Mousavi, draped in red cloth, and chanting UPSOUND (Arabic): “God is great, America is the great Satan”
2. Various of coffin being carried into Imam Ali shrine, mourners chanting UPSOUND (Arabic): “There is no God but Allah, Israel is the enemy of Allah”
3. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Raed Al-Haidari, mourner:
"We offer our condolences to the resistance and its axis on the martyrdom of the leader, Major-General Reda al-Moussawi (Seyed Razi Mousavi), at the hands of God's worst creation on earth, namely America and Israel."
4. Various of men mourning next to coffin
5. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Qasim Al-Khaqani, head of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Najaf:
"Today, we are saddened by this great tragedy, the martyrdom of one of the heroic leaders who resisted the Americans and the Zionists and, God willing, we will avenge (Mousavi), this will not diminish the resolve of the heroic mujahideen."
6. Various of coffin being carried inside Imam Ali shrine
STORYLINE:
The body of Gen. Razi Mousavi, a high-ranking Iranian general killed in an alleged Israeli strike in Syria, arrived in Iraq on Wednesday.
Hundreds of mourners gathered in Najaf carrying the coffin down the streets of the city before a service was held in Imam Ali shrine.
The coffin will make its way to the city of Karbala for another religious service being held in Imam Hussein’s shrine before being sent to Iran for burial.
It is an Iranian tradition to take the bodies of prominent figures to the shrines of Shiite saints before being repatriated for burial.
Iran announced on Monday that an Israeli strike on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus killed Mousavi, who had been a close companion of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the former head of Iran’s elite Quds Force.
Soleimani was slain in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.
A spokesman for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Ramezan Sharif, threatened retaliation for the killing during a new conference on Wednesday.
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