By REUTERS
A stampede broke out at IRGC commander Qasem Soleiman's funeral, killing 40 people and injuring about 213, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, citing an emergency services official. Iran's ISNA news agency said the burial of Soleimani had been postponed, but did not say how long any delay would last.
"So far 40 people were killed and 213 others were wounded in the incident," the official told Fars.
Soleimani's burial was postponed due to the deaths and injuries.
Tens of thousands of people had gathered in Kerman to pay tribute to Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq on Friday.
"Today because of the heavy congestion of the crowd unfortunately a number of our fellow citizens who were mourning were injured and a number were killed," emergency medical services chief Pirhossein Kolivand told state television.
He did not give further details.
The body of Soleimani, a national hero whose death has united many Iranians, had been taken to Iraqi and Iranian cities before arriving in Kerman for burial.
In each place, huge numbers of people filled thoroughfares, chanting "Death to America" and weeping with emotion. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shed tears as led prayers in Tehran on Monday.
In other developments on Tuesday, a senior Iranian official said Tehran was considering 13 scenarios to avenge his killing.
In Washington, the US defense secretary denied reports the US military was preparing to withdraw from Iraq, where Tehran has vied with Washington for influence over nearly two decades of war and unrest.
Soleimani was responsible for building up Tehran's network of proxy armies across the Middle East and he was a key figure in orchestrating Iran's long-standing campaign to drive US forces out of its neighbor Iraq.
US and Iranian warnings of new strikes and retaliation have also stoked concerns about a broader Middle East conflict and led to calls in the US Congress for legislation to stop US President Donald Trump going to war with Iran.
"We will take revenge, a hard and definitive revenge," the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, General Hossein Salami, told the crowds in Kerman prior to the stampede.
Khamenei and military commanders have said Iranian retaliation would match the scale of Soleimani's killing but that it would be at a time and place of Tehran's choosing.
Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said 13 "revenge scenarios" were being considered, Fars news agency reported. Even the weakest option would prove "a historic nightmare for the Americans," he said.
Iran, whose southern coast stretches along a Gulf oil shipping route that includes the narrow Strait of Hormuz, has allied forces across the Middle East through which it could act. Representatives from those groups, including the Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, attended the funeral events in Tehran.
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