Iran holds funeral for general killed in Iraq

Revolutionary Guard’s Hamid Taqavi dies fighting Islamic State north of Baghdad

By AP 29 December 2014, 12:14 pm

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Illustrative photo of Iranian Revolutionary Guards (@MidEastNews_Eng via Twitter/File)

TEHRAN, Iran — A funeral was held Monday for a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard who was killed during a battle against the Islamic State extremist group in Iraq.

State TV said the funeral for Brig. Gen. Hamid Taqavi was held in a Guard compound in Tehran. He will be buried in his hometown Ahvaz in southeastern Iran on Tuesday.

The Guard said Sunday that Taqavi was “martyred while performing his advisory mission” in Samarra, a town north of Baghdad that is home to a major Shiite shrine. He is the highest ranking Iranian officer known to have been killed abroad since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

Shiite Iran says it has sent military advisers to help government forces in Syria and Iraq, but denies sending combat troops.

Taqavi is the highest ranking officer known to have been killed outside Iran since the devastating 1980-88 war with Iraq, in which he fought and in which he lost his father and a brother.

The Guard said Taqavi was assisting Iraqi troops and Shiite volunteers defending Samarra, a city north of Baghdad which is home to a major Shiite shrine. It did not provide any details on how he was killed but said a funeral procession will be held in Tehran on Monday.

“Taqavi played a valuable and unforgettable role in countering the enemies of Islam,” the Guard said, without elaborating.

Iran says it has played a key role in rolling back the Islamic State group following the extremists’ summer blitz, in which they captured much of northern and western Iraq, including the second largest city Mosul. But Tehran insists its officers are only providing military advice and training.

Those efforts have been led by Maj. Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, commander of the Guard’s elite and secretive Quds Force. In recent months pictures have surfaced showing Soleimani meeting with Iraqi commanders on various battlefields.

In the years following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, American commanders repeatedly accused the Quds Force of backing Shiite militias implicated in attacks on American troops and Sunni civilians, charges denied by Tehran.