Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haq Spox to Al-Ahed: We Won’t Be Satisfied With Expelling US Forces

By Mokhtar Haddad

Kerman - Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and a group of their companions in jihad were martyred in the early hours of January 2 in a brutal American attack in Baghdad. 

Their remains were carried by a sea of mourners for days as millions from across Iraq and Iran took to the streets to renew their pledge of allegiance to the path of martyrs. In Soleimani’s hometown of Kerman, the scene mirrored that of other Iranian cities as massive crowds bid their final farewell to the top general.

An Iraqi official tells Al-Ahed that the unprecedented number of mourners is a demonstration of both unity and support for the late Iranian general.    

“The Americans thought that by killing general Qassem Soleimani, the Iraqi and Iranian people would forget him. On the contrary, they were completely wrong.” said the Deputy Secretary General of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq [AAH], Sayyed Muhammad al-Tabatabai.

“By killing him, they have revived him,” Sayyed al-Tabatabai added. 

“The people of Iraq and Iran joined hands. They took part in the funeral processions starting from Al-Kadhimiya shrines to Baghdad to the holy city of Krabala and to the holy city of Najaf. There were massive crowds. There were even more in Iran. Masses came out in Ahvaz, Mashhad or Tehran, and today in Kerman Shah. We have never seen anything like it,” he explained. "Hajj Qassem’s martyrdom united the Iraqi and Iranian peoples."

“The other fruit of this martyrdom is the Iraqi parliament's vote to expel all American military forces from Iraq. We are awaiting other positions from the Iraqi parliament because Hajj Qassem Soleimani came as a guest to Iraq, and we will not be satisfied with expelling American forces. We call for a boycott of all goods that come from America and closing the US embassy in Iraq," AAH’s deputy chief said.

"The response will be decisive, as Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei said. This response will come from the Islamic Republic, the resistance factions and the Popular Mobilization Units in Iraq."