TEHRAN // Thousands gathered in Tehran at a funeral procession on Wednesday for a Revolutionary Guards general killed by Israel, after his commander warned the Jewish state it should “await destructive thunderbolts”.
General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi died alongside six fighters from Lebanon’s Hizbollah group in the attack near Quneitra on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights on Sunday.
Allahdadi’s coffin was draped in an Iranian flag as it was carried into a Guards base in southeast Tehran.
He will be buried on Thursday in Pariz, a town in the southern province of Kerman.
“The path of martyr Allahdadi is unstoppable and will be continued until the liberation of the Holy Quds [Jerusalem] and obliteration of the Zionist regime,” Iran’s chief Guard commander Major General Ali Jafari said at a ceremony at the base, according to the official IRNA news agency.
State TV said Allahdadi was “martyred while performing his advisory mission” in Syria.
The mourners chanted “Death to Israel” and burned two Israeli flags.
Allahdadi died alongside Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of an assassinated Hizbollah commander, and Mohammed Issa, a fighter responsible for the Lebanese group’s operations in Syria and Iraq.
An Israeli security source said that one of its helicopters carried out the strike but a United Nations’ observer force in the Golan on Sunday raised the possibility that drones may have been used.
On Tuesday, Maj Gen Jafari took aim at Israel, saying “the Zionists should await destructive thunderbolts”.
“They have in the past seen our wrath,” he said, adding that the Guards “will continue its support for Muslim fighters and combatants in the region”.
Iran has repeatedly vowed to retaliate against any attacks by Israel or Western powers in recent years. While it will unlikely respond militarily, it may step up the support it already provides to armed groups like the Palestinian Hamas and the Lebanese Hizbollah movements.
Once solely focused on fighting Israel, Hizbollah is now deeply involved in the war in neighbouring Syria, where it backs President Bashar Al Assad.
Shiite Iran is Mr Assad’s main regional ally in his war against the mainly Sunni rebels seeking to overthrow him.
Hizbollah’s Al Manar television said the group’s six fighters were killed as they carried out reconnaissance.
But an Israeli security source said it had carried out a strike on “terrorists” who were preparing an attack on the Jewish state.
The incident came days after Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah threatened to retaliate against Israel for its repeated strikes on targets in Syria and boasted the movement was stronger than ever.
He touted its sophisticated arsenal, including Fateh-110 missiles, which have a range of 200 kilometres or more and are capable of hitting much of Israel.
In 2006, Israel fought a bloody war against Hizbollah that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
Allahdadi is one of the highest ranking Iranian officers known to have been killed abroad in decades. Another senior Guard commander, Brig Gen Hamid Taqavi, was killed during a battle against the ISIL extremist group in Samarra, Iraq last month.
Shiite-majority Iran says it has sent military advisers to assist Syria and Iraq in battling Sunni extremist groups, but Tehran has denied sending combat forces.
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
