TEHRAN – Mourners gathered Saturday in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz to bury the victims of a terrorist assault on a shrine, while chanting slogans against foreign-backed seditious riots which hit the country for weeks.
At least 13 people were martyred Wednesday at the Shah Cheragh mausoleum in the city, according to official media, in an attack claimed by the Daesh terrorist group.
During Saturday’s funeral processions in Iran, tens of thousands of mourners chanted slogans condemning the United States, the occupying regime of Israel and Britain.
They marched through central Shiraz following a vehicle carrying the victims’ coffins which were draped in the Iranian flag.
The crowd chanted “Death to America, to Israel, to England” and “The vigilant revolutionary people hates the rioters.”
The coffins were then flown to the holy city of Mashhad, which houses the mausoleum of the eighth Shia Imam, Ali ibn Musa al-Reza.
During the ceremony, the head of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) urged “a limited number of youth deceived” by the Islamic Republic’s enemies to put an end to the riots.
“Don’t sell your honor to America and don’t slap the security forces who are defending you in the face,” Major General Hussein Salami said.
“Today is when the riots end,” he said, calling on students “not to become chess pieces for the enemy”.
“This sinister plan, is a plan hatched ... in the White House and the Zionist regime,” he said, adding the U.S., the occupying regime of Israel, and Saudi Arabia are desperate about their back-to-back defeats in West Asia, including in Yemen.
The top general said those behind Iran’s riots cannot tolerate the Islamic Republic’s political and spiritual influence across the region, and have therefore resorted to provoking unrest inside Iran, but to no avail.
He said Washington has a long history of making attempts to weaken Iran, stressing that the Islamic Republic has successfully overcome hurdles caused by inhumane U.S. sanctions.
“We will bury U.S. pipedreams in this land,” he said. “The Iranian nation has proven that the U.S. cannot do a damn thing,” Gen Salami said, stating that Washington did not dare to respond when Iran hit American bases in Iraq on January 8, 2020.
The IRGC chief stressed that the Iranian nation is inspired by Imam Hussein (AS), the third Shia Imam and the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon Him), and

his companions in the fight against tyranny.
“The U.S. wants the Iranian nation to be dependent in order to plunder its natural wealth. It wants the Iranian universities to be shuttered and its public assets torched.”
Gen. Salami said the Islamic establishment is deeply-rooted in the hearts and minds of the Iranian nation.
The IRGC chief also called on rioting students to “return to the nation” and not “play into the hands of the enemies”.
He said those flouting hijab and harassing veiled women are following the path of enemies.
Gen. Salami also warned Saudi leaders against fuelling the riots, calling on the royal family “and the media under their control to be careful”.
“You, who provoke people and sow the seeds of sedition by showing images (from Iran), think a little about what could happen to you,” Gen. Salami said.

Sanctions on U.S., Canada
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani says Iran will “soon” impose sanctions on American and Canadian individuals and institutions for their support of terrorism and inciting violence against the Iranian nation in the recent riots.
The measure comes after the U.S. and Canada sanctioned a number of Iranian individuals and various bodies over what they claimed as human rights violations and repression of the recent riots.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran, based on the enactments passed by the relevant authorities and within the framework of related rules and sanction mechanisms, and as a countermeasure, will soon place under sanctions American and Canadian individuals and institutions for their deliberate actions in supporting terrorism and terrorist groups, promoting and inciting terrorism, violence and hate-mongering which have led to riots, violence, terrorist acts and human rights violations against the Iranian people,” Kanaani told reporters.
On Oct. 13, the Canadian government targeted 17 Iranian individuals, including former foreign minister Muhammad Javad Zarif and ex-defense chief Brigadier General Amir Hatami as well as three entities.
Ottawa had earlier imposed sanctions on a wide range of Iranian institutions and persons, including the 24-hour English-language Press TV, under the similar pretext of “rights violations.”