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Iran renames airport, route after late General Soleimani

People carry images of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian commander assassinated by the US earlier this week, and his fellow Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, at a funeral procession in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahwaz on January 5, 2020. (Photo by Mehr)

 

Iranian authorities say a busy airport southwest of the country and a key freeway linked to the capital Tehran have been renamed after Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of Iran’s elite Quds military force who was assassinated by the US military in Iraq earlier this week.

Iran’s transportation ministry said on Sunday that the Ahvaz International Airport, one of the five busiest gateways in the country, was renamed after General Soelimani earlier in the day when the body of the commander was taken to the city from the neighboring Iraq to mark the start of a cross-country funeral procession in Iran.

Soleimani, an iconic figure in Iran and in the Middle East known for his years of brave fight against terrorism in the region, was assassinated in the early hours of Friday when US drones bombed a convoy carrying him and nine other military and militia fighters from the airport in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman of the transportation ministry, said three other infrastructures, namely the Tehran-Saveh Freeway, located to the southwest of Tehran, the border crossing in Mehran on the frontier between Iran and Iraq and a state-of-the-art road bridge currently under construction near the southern city of Shiraz, would be named after General Soleimani.

He said the name changes came at the orders of Iran’s transportation minister and were meant to honor Soleimani’s great services to the country.  

“These are among the most important road and urban infrastructures that have been named after the Martyr Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani as of today," said the official, adding "(they) will be identified by this name from now on” . 


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