In pictures: Iranian factory makes US and Israeli flags only to burn later

KHOMEIN: Business is booming at Iran's largest flag factory which makes US British and Israeli flags for Iranian protesters to burn.

Demonstrators burn Israeli and US flags during a protest over the death of Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in an air strike near Baghdad, in Tehran, Iran.

At the factory in the town of Khomeini, southwest of the capital Tehran, young men and women print the flags by hand then hang them up to dry. The factory produces about 2,000 US and Israeli flags a month in its busiest periods, and more than 1.5 million square feet of flags a year.

Iranian workers make US flags at a large flag factory which creates them and Israeli flags for Iranian protesters to burn in Khomein City, Iran. PHOTO: REUTERS

Tensions between the United States and Iran have reached the highest level in decades after top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad on January 3, prompting Iran to retaliate with a missile attack against a US base in Iraq days later. In state-sponsored rallies and protests in Iran, demonstrators regularly burn the flags of Israel, US and Britain.

PHOTO: REUTERS

Ghasem Ghanjani, who owns the Diba Parcham flag factory, said: "We have no problem with the American and British people. We have (a) problem with their governors. We have (a) problem with their presidents, with the wrong policy they have." "The people of America and Israel know that we have no problem with them.

PHOTO: REUTERS

If people burn the flags of these countries at different rallies, it is only to show their protest." Rezaei, a quality control manager, who declined to give her first name, said, "compared to the cowardly actions of the United States, such as General Soleimani's  assassination, this (burning an American flag) is a minimal thing against them.

PHOTO: REUTERS

This is the least that can be done." For hardliners, anti-American sentiment has always been central to Iran's Islamic revolution, and Iran's clerical rulers continue to denounce the United States as the Great Satan.

PHOTO: REUTERS

Last November, however, many Iranians took to the streets to protest against the country's top authorities, chanting "our enemy is not the US, our enemy is here." During protests this month that erupted after Tehran belatedly admitted shooting down a passenger plane by mistake, young demonstrators in Tehran refused to step on the American flag painted on the street.

PHOTO: REUTERS