A crowd estimated at 10,000 chanted "Death to America!" -- in English -- as Iranian President Ali Khamenei, speaking alongside 72 coffins draped in Iranian flags, vowed revenge and called the downing of the airliner by a United States warship "an act of murder." After the service, the demonstrators carried the coffins to Behesht Zahra, best known as the "cemetery of the martyrs," a vast burial ground for the countless casualties of the Iran-Iraq war.Iran's president appears to use the tragedy to invigorate his troops. "The best way to fight back is to be present at the front," Khamenei said at the cemetery. US President Ronald Regan is adamant that the incident is now closed.
In his July 4 letter to the speaker of the House of Representatives and the president -- pro tempore -- of the Senate on the destruction of an Iranian Jetliner, Reagan wrote:"There has been no further hostile action by Iranian forces, and, although U.S. forces will remain prepared to take additional defensive action to protect our units and military personnel, we regard this incident as closed." Read full story
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