Funeral of Ayatollah Khamenei has concluded; he was buried in Iran's holiest shrine
Kyiv • UNN
Ali Khamenei was buried in Mashhad after a week of mourning that gathered over 15 million people. His son Mojtaba was not present at the funeral.
The assassinated Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, was buried in the country's holiest Shiite shrine after a week of funeral processions in several cities in Iran and Iraq, and more than four months after he was killed by a US-Israeli strike on his compound in central Tehran, UNN reports, citing Al Jazeera.
Details
State media reported early on Friday that he was buried in his hometown of Mashhad at the Imam Reza shrine, a vast religious complex with a large golden dome and gilded minarets in the very heart of the city.
The burial ceremony was private, but took place after a week of public mourning and processions that drew huge crowds, totaling more than 15 million people, and possibly more than double that, according to Iranian estimates.
However, one person was notably absent from the funeral events – Khamenei's son and successor as Supreme Leader, Mojtaba, who has not been seen in public since the attack on February 28, which killed his father and marked the beginning of the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Khamenei's funeral was originally scheduled for March but was postponed as Iran became embroiled in the war.
Official public funeral events finally began last Saturday, when tens of thousands of Iranians gathered at the Grand Mosalla religious complex in Tehran, where Khamenei's coffin was displayed. The event was attended by invited delegations from Iran's regional allies: Hamas and Islamic Jihad from Gaza, Hezbollah from Lebanon, and the Houthis from Yemen. The following day, an even larger crowd gathered at the mosque.
On Monday, at least 12 million people lined the streets of the capital as the coffin was slowly transported by truck in a 10-kilometer procession to Azadi Square, a vast square in western Tehran that has served as the venue for the largest gatherings of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Revolution.
On Tuesday, several hundred thousand people gathered on the streets of the holy city of Qom for another procession with Khamenei's coffin, which was then taken to neighboring Iraq, where on Wednesday it was carried through Najaf, the third holiest city of Shiite Islam, and Karbala, another city with special status for Shiites.
Khamenei's body arrived by plane early Thursday morning in Mashhad to be transferred to a truck for the final funeral cortege. As in previous processions, the coffins of four family members who died with him in the airstrike were also carried through the streets.
Mourners in black walked behind, waving Iranian flags, photographs of the late Khamenei, and red banners with revolutionary slogans. "Mourners also chanted slogans demanding revenge against US President Donald Trump for his role," the publication writes.
At the final stage of the procession, the crowd was so dense that the truck could not pass, so Khamenei's coffin was delivered by helicopter to the Imam Reza shrine, where he had asked to be buried.