Iran begins week of funeral ceremonies for slain Supreme Leader Khamenei
Top Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries pay their respects to the late leader killed in a joint US-Israeli strike at the start of the war
Top Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries pay their respects to the late leader killed in a joint US-Israeli strike at the start of the war in February. The body of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lies in state in a vast hall in Tehran as top Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries pay their respects, marking the beginning of a week of funeral ceremonies. Black-clad mourners carried Khamenei’s coffin aloft at the vast Grand Mosalla religious complex in the capital, Tehran, on Friday, with the casket draped with the national flag of the Islamic Republic that he led for more than three decades. Authorities expect public mourning and grand processions to attract millions before Khamenei’s burial next week, four months after the 86-year-old leader was killed at his compound on February 28, the first day of a joint United States-Israeli war on Iran. Alongside Khamenei’s casket lay those of his three-year-old granddaughter, eldest daughter, son-in-law and daughter-in-law – all killed in the strike on February 28. State TV broadcast footage of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian paying his respects at Khamenei’s coffin, alongside the parliament speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Ahmad Vahidi, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the ideological arm of the Iranian military, also made his first appearance since the start of the war. The funeral was scheduled for March, but was delayed due to the war on Iran. Many world leaders are also attending the six days of commemoration, with a public ceremony scheduled on Saturday in Tehran, followed by a procession through holy cities in both Iran and neighbouring Iraq. Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas, reporting from Tehran, said the government has not invited several European countries to the funeral, and the “attendees were mostly from either neutral or friendly states”. “According to the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, so far more than 50 delegations have already paid their respects to Iran’s late supreme leader,” he said, naming the presidents of Iraq, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, as well as Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. “Iranians are saying they did not extend invitations to European countries or those who have directly, or indirectly, supported the Israeli and American military campaign on Iran,” Atas said. Iranian authorities expect millions of people to flood the streets of Tehran starting Saturday, in scenes reminiscent of the 1989 funeral of Khamenei’s predecessor, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, attended by an estimated 10 million people.
The BriefWire