The bodies of the martyred General Soleimani and his companions in a funeral procession have arrived in the southern Iranian city of Ahvaz, the main city in Iran’s eight-year battle against the forces of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, which was the scene of braveries of General Soleimani and thousands of other Iranians.

From Ahvaz, the cortege will be heading to the holy city of Mashhad in Iran’s northeast later in the day and from there to Tehran on Monday and finally to his hometown Kerman in the southeast for burial on Tuesday.

The United States terrorist forces assassinated Lt. General Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s pro-government Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) — better known as Hashd al-Sha’abi — in an airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport early on Friday.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said in a statement that a harsh vengeance “in due time and right place” awaits criminals behind Soleimani’s assassination.

General Soleimani, 62, was Tehran’s pre-eminent military commander and – as head of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)’s overseas Quds Force – the architect of Iran’s anti-terror campaign and fight against American and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.