“HISTORIC” STATE FUNERAL
The ceremony in Tehran “to honour the martyrs” will be followed by a funeral procession to Azadi Square, about 11km across the sprawling metropolis.
Mohsen Mahmoudi, head of Tehran’s Islamic Development Coordination Council, vowed it would be a “historic day for Islamic Iran and the revolution”.
Among the dead is Mohammad Bagheri, a major general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the second-in-command of the armed forces after the Iranian leader.
He will be buried alongside his wife and daughter, a journalist for a local media outlet, all killed in an Israeli attack.
Nuclear scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, also killed in the attacks, will be buried with his wife.
Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami, who was killed on the first day of the war, will also be laid to rest after Saturday’s ceremony — which will also honour at least 30 other top commanders.
Of the 60 people who are to be laid to rest after the ceremony, four are children.
“IMMINENT THREAT”
During his first term in office, Trump pulled out in 2018 of a landmark nuclear deal — negotiated by former US president Barack Obama.
The deal that Trump had abandoned aimed to make it practically impossible for Iran to build an atomic bomb, while at the same time allowing it to pursue a civil nuclear programme.
Iran, which insists its nuclear programme is only for civilian purposes, stepped up its activities after Trump withdrew from the agreement.
After the US strikes, Trump said negotiations for a new deal were set to begin next week.
But Tehran denied a resumption, and leader Khamenei said Trump had “exaggerated events in unusual ways”, rejecting US claims Iran’s nuclear programme had been set back by decades.
Israel had claimed it had “thwarted Iran’s nuclear project” during the 12-day war.
But its foreign minister reiterated on Friday that the world was obliged to stop Tehran from developing an atomic bomb.
“The international community now has an obligation to prevent, through any effective means, the world’s most extreme regime from obtaining the most dangerous weapon,” Gideon Saar wrote on X.