Tens of thousands of mourners dressed in black, some waving Hezbollah flags or carrying portraits of the group's slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, flocked to his funeral Sunday in a stadium on the outskirts of Beirut.

The killing of the charismatic leader, who guided the Lebanese movement for more than three decades, dealt a heavy blow to the Iran-backed group's reputation as a fighting force.

But Hezbollah, which also played a major role in the country's politics for decades, has long had a support base in the country's majority Shiite Muslim community by providing social and economic services.

Many men, women and children from Lebanon and beyond walked on foot in the biting cold to reach the site of the ceremony, delayed for security reasons after Nasrallah's death in a massive Israeli strike on Hezbollah's south Beirut bastion in September.

One of them was Umm Mahdi, 55, who had come "to see him (Nasrallah) one last time and see his shrine... Of course, we feel sadness".

"This is the least we can do for Sayyed who gave up everything," she added, using an honorific.

As the........

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