Iraq's ex-President Talabani buried in Kurdish region
BAGHDAD (AP) - Thousands of Iraqi Kurdish mourners, Iraqi officials and world dignitaries have attended the funeral of Jalal Talabani, the country's first president in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq and once a symbol of national unity.
Talabani was laid to rest Friday in Sulaimaniyah, the second-largest city in Iraq's Kurdish region, after his casket - draped in the Kurdish flag - was flown back from Berlin where he died at a hospital earlier this week.
From the airport in Suleimaniyah, a motorcade carried the casket to a nearby hill for burial. Crowds poured into the streets, following the funeral procession on foot, carrying flags and posters bearing Talabani's image and the emblem of the political party he founded more than three decades ago, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
FILE - In this Aug. 17, 2007 file photo, then Iraqi President Jalal Talabani talks to reporters in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraqi leaders and world dignitaries are gathered at Iraqi Kurdistan's Suleimaniyeh airport to pay their respects to the late Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who died three days ago in Germany. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban, File)