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Iran warned the US and Israel any attacks during the public funeral would be met with a ‘harsh retaliation’
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Iran has begun several days of public mourning for former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in joint US-Israeli strikes in February.
Officials told AFP that the funeral in Tehran could draw as many as 20 million mourners and expect the public turnout to be a “referendum” for the Islamic Republic.
The regime’s ruling clerics are preparing days of mass funeral rites for Khamenei. Funeral events will begin over the weekend in Tehran, followed by mass processions next week in Qom and Masshad and ceremonies in Iraq.
“The large public turnout at the funeral procession of the martyred leader and the other martyrs will, in effect, be another referendum for the Islamic Republic,” Qom Friday prayer leader Ayatollah Mohammad Saidi declared to state media.
Iran has warned Donald Trump and Israel not to launch strikes during the state funeral.
Ali Abdollahi, commander of Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said the “enemies of Iran” should avoid a “miscalculation” or else face harsh retaliation.
In Iran’s theocratic system, Khamenei was not only head of state and leader of a revolutionary movement, but the earthly representative for Shi’ite Islam’s 12th imam, who disappeared in the ninth century.
His death in an enemy attack plays into a powerful Shi’ite tradition of martyrdom and mourning. Khamenei’s coffin was unveiled late on Thursday.
On Friday the coffin was laid in state in the great prayer hall built to honour his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The coffin will remain in the Mosalla until Sunday evening.
Burials are meant to be conducted within a day of death in Islam, but because of the risks of holding a big funeral during the war it was postponed until after last month’s interim truce deal was agreed.
After what authorities are billing as a massive procession in central Tehran on Monday, the remains will be taken to the seminary city of Qom, the centre of Iran’s Shi’ite hierarchy, for ceremonies on Tuesday.
Ceremonies will then be held in Iraq’s shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala on Wednesday, with prominent attendees from Iran’s regional network of Shi’ite proxies.
He will be buried on Thursday, after another procession, in Mashhad near the tomb of the Imam Reza, a figure of great devotion in Iran.
Authorities plan to mobilise millions of people for big processions over the coming days, offering transport, food and lodging to buoy the numbers and encourage more of Iran’s population of over 90 million to attend commemorations.
The funeral is taking place at a critical moment for Iran, where the clerical rulers backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are buoyed from surviving what they saw as an existential war against their most powerful foes.
But behind the veneer of unity and devotion, public support for the Islamic Republic has worn paper thin, analysts say. Mojtaba Khamenei, who has long been close to Iran’s elite IRGC, has not been seen in any new image since being wounded in the strike that killed his father.
Thousands of U.S. and Israeli airstrikes hit a range of military targets, energy and civilian infrastructure during weeks of war that began with the killing of Khamenei on February 28.
The attacks killed more than 3,000 people in Iran, according to state media. Iran retaliated with strikes on U.S. bases, missiles fired towards Israel and a series of hits on energy targets in Gulf Arab states, while choking oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
At least 13 U.S. troops have been killed.
Thousands more people have been killed across the region in the fallout from the war, notably in Lebanon where Israel continues to fight the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.
Israeli attacks and demolitions have flattened vast swathes of civilian areas in southern Lebanon.
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has not been spotted at the funeral ceremony for his late father today.
It is understood that the new supreme leader’s request to attend the processions was rejected by Iran’s security officials due to fears Israel will kill him or track him down.
The New York Times cited two unnamed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members and a person involved with planning the multi-day funeral.
Thousands of people gathered at Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla in Tehran on Saturday, July 4, to pay their respects during a public farewell ceremony for Iran‘s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the US-Israeli airstrikes in February.
Mourners wept, beat their chests and waved flags as the flag-draped coffins of Khamenei and members of his family killed in the same attack were placed in state at the mosque.
Iran has organised a week of funeral ceremonies and public processions for Khamenei.
Public farewell events are scheduled for 4 and 5 July, followed by the main funeral procession in Tehran on 6 July.
The delayed ceremony for the former supreme leader now serves as a critical test for Iran’s embattled theocracy, testing its capacity to mobilise widespread public support- particularly as the event unfolds six months after security forces brutally suppressed nationwide protests against Ali Khamenei’s rule.
A significant turnout, while desired by the regime, also carries the inherent risk of deadly stampedes.
Such tragedies have marred previous high-profile funerals, including that of Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
An uneasy ceasefire, recently cemented by an interim agreement with the United States, is believed to have provided authorities with the confidence to proceed with the ceremony, which will involve the public appearance of top officials.
Throughout the war, Israel targeted and killed senior Iranian leaders, in at least one instance leveraging public appearances to track them.
Two weeks into the 60-day peace negotiation period between Iran and the United States and – despite President Donald Trump’s claims of success – little progress has been made.
Instead, both sides appear to be regressing: hostilities have flared and officials from both sides are no longer directly talking to each other as the clock keeps ticking and key issues, such as Iran’s nuclear programme, remain unresolved.
Read more here:
A widening rift has opened up between Saudi Arabia and the United States because of the war in Iran, a report claims.
Officials told the Wall Street Journal the partnership between Washington and Riyadh is souring over disputes on how President Donald Trump has handled the war, which began after joint US-Israel strikes on Iran in February.
The US is reportedly now considering reducing its military presence in Saudi Arabia and instead putting its forces in countries it feels were more supportive during the war, including Israel and Jordan, according to the WSJ.
After a day of Khamenei lying in state indoors for senior Iranian leaders and foreign officials to visit, his coffin, and those of several family members killed in the same airstrike, were brought to an outdoor stage for the general public to view from a distance, television footage showed.
Mourners filed into the vast courtyard of the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla, beating their chests, wailing and waving the banners of the Islamic Republic and historic Shi’ite Muslim martyrs.
Women dressed in black chadors wore white visors or held umbrellas to shield from the hot mid-morning sun.
“Let us wail!” a compere encouraged the crowds through a loudspeaker.
“Everybody chant oppressed, everyone say Hussein,” he said, invoking Shi’ite traditions of sacrifice, including that of the Prophet Mohammad’s grandson Hussein.
On cue, the crowds wailed and chanted. The Israeli strike that killed Khamenei also killed his daughter, grandchild, daughter-in-law and son-in-law, according to Iranian state media.
Fears are growing for a British couple detained in Iran who have not eaten in nearly two months after their contact with family was cut off.
Craig and Lindsay Foreman, both 53, have been on hunger strike for 55 and 46 days respectively in protest at their treatment inside Iran’s notorious Evin prison.
The couple were arrested on a once-in-a-lifetime world motorbike tour 18 months ago, and were later sentenced to 10 years in prison on espionage charges, which they completely deny.
UN human rights experts have demanded their urgent release, and warned that their incarceration raises grave concerns about state hostage-taking, adding that their hunger strike has reached the stage of a “medical emergency”.
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