Iran International
Iran is preparing an unprecedented security operation for the funeral of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, seeking to prevent a repeat of the deadly crowd crushes that marred the burials of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 and General Ghasem Soleimani in 2020.
Iran is preparing an unprecedented security operation for the funeral of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, seeking to prevent a repeat of the deadly crowd crushes that marred the burials of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 and General Ghasem Soleimani in 2020.
More than four months after Khamenei's death, authorities say he will be buried on July 9 following five days of ceremonies across Iran and Iraq. The unusually long delay, officials say, reflects wartime conditions and security concerns, underscoring the political and logistical complexity of burying the Islamic Republic's longest-serving supreme leader.
The funeral will also be the first major state ceremony under Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, making it an important test of the new leadership's ability to project authority and maintain order.
The body will lie in state for three days at Tehran's Mosalla prayer complex before a funeral procession through the capital. It will then be taken to the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala before returning to Iran for ceremonies in Qom and burial in Mashhad, Khamenei's birthplace, at the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Imam of Shiite Islam.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Baghdad this week to coordinate with Iraqi officials on the cross-border procession.
Authorities have yet to announce who will lead the funeral prayer, traditionally one of the ceremony's most symbolic moments. If Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not appeared publicly since his father's death, attends, some observers believe he could lead the prayer himself, although officials have given no indication that will happen.
Security takes center stage
Iranian officials have repeatedly stressed that crowd management and security will be their foremost priorities.
Gholamhossein Mozaffari, governor of Razavi Khorasan Province, where Khamenei will be buried, has suggested helicopters could be used during parts of the operation to help control crowds and ensure the safe movement of the coffin.
It remains unclear whether such measures would be confined to Mashhad or employed throughout the ceremonies.
Protecting senior officials, managing crowds and transporting the coffin across several cities in two countries is likely to require one of the largest security operations in the Islamic Republic's history.
First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref has described Khamenei's funeral as "the most important event of the 21st century," reflecting the political and symbolic significance authorities attach to the occasion.
Lessons from Khomeini's funeral
Iran's caution is rooted largely in the chaotic funeral of Islamic Republic founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini following his death on June 3, 1989.
His body lay in state at Tehran's Mosalla before funeral prayers led by Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Golpayegani.
The following day, however, hundreds of thousands of mourners surged toward Khomeini's coffin as it was transported to the burial site. Security forces lost control as people attempted to touch the coffin, damaging it and tearing the burial shroud.
Authorities were forced to evacuate the body by helicopter and return it to Jamaran for re-shrouding before postponing the burial until the following day.
State media claimed attendance reached around 10 million people, although foreign estimates were considerably lower. Numerous people were reported injured and others are believed to have died in the crush, though no official casualty figure was ever released.
Khomeini was initially buried in a simple grave near Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery. The site was later transformed into a vast mausoleum complex.
Another tragedy
The funeral of Ghasem Soleimani after he was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020, became the largest state funeral in Iran since Khomeini's.
His body was carried through several Iraqi and Iranian cities before reaching his hometown of Kerman, where a crowd crush and the collapse of barriers killed at least 56 people and injured more than 200, forcing officials to delay the burial.
The twin disasters at the funerals of Khomeini and Soleimani continue to shape Iranian planning for large state ceremonies.
By emphasizing crowd control, carefully staged processions and extraordinary security, officials appear determined to ensure Khamenei's funeral is remembered not for chaos, but as a demonstration of the state's ability to manage one of the most consequential events in the Islamic Republic's history.
A rare public dispute has erupted inside Iran's Assembly of Experts after a majority of its members issued a statement on the US-Iran memorandum of understanding, prompting an extraordinary public rebuke from the body's own leadership within hours.
The exchange has exposed signs of growing infighting at the highest levels of the Islamic Republic.
The normally quiet body, responsible for appointing and theoretically overseeing the supreme leader, has become the latest arena for disagreement over negotiations with Washington, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the limits of compromise with the United States.
The controversy began after more than 60 of the Assembly's 84 members published a statement on Saturday that ventured far beyond the body's customary role, laying out detailed positions on the memorandum, the Strait of Hormuz, Lebanon, nuclear negotiations and retaliation against the United States and Israel.
The signatories thanked Iranian negotiators but warned them to learn from what they called the failures of previous talks, adding that observing Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's red lines was a religious obligation and that violating them was "not permissible under any circumstances."
In one of its most inflammatory passages, the statement called for those responsible for Ali Khamenei's killing, including the US president and Israeli prime minister, to be punished, saying anyone with access to them had a religious duty to kill them.
The statement also described reopening the Strait of Hormuz while Israeli operations continued in Lebanon as a "strategic error" and insisted Iran's nuclear rights should be excluded from negotiations.
The intervention was extraordinary because the Assembly almost never comments on day-to-day policy. Better known for infrequent formal sessions and ritual expressions of support for the leadership, it has also come under increased scrutiny following the opaque process that elevated Mojtaba Khamenei after his father's death during the war.
Within hours, however, the Assembly's presidium and secretariat issued a rare public clarification that appeared to rebuke the manner in which the statement had been released.
While reaffirming support for Mojtaba Khamenei and insisting officials must follow his guidance on the memorandum and negotiations, the secretariat said it was unprecedented for a group of members to issue a statement under the Assembly's name outside its established procedures.
It said official positions should be issued through the full Assembly, its chairman, the presidium or the secretariat, and argued that the signatories should have sought broader discussion to preserve the body's unity.
The response immediately drew fire from Raja News, an outlet aligned with ultrahardline factions that oppose negotiations with Washington and are often critical of Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has led the talks.
In an editorial, Raja News argued it was the secretariat—not the signatories—that had undermined the Assembly's unity. It noted that the secretariat itself acknowledged that non-signatories did not necessarily disagree with the statement's substance.
The outlet mocked the suggestion that senior clerics should have sought permission before explaining the supreme leader's red lines to the public and asked why such an overwhelming majority had felt compelled to bypass the body's leadership in the first place.
Rather than criticizing the signatories, Raja News argued, the Assembly's leadership should explain why confidence in its handling of sensitive issues had deteriorated to that point.
In its sharpest criticism, the outlet suggested similar questions had surrounded the Assembly leadership's handling of the selection of Iran's third supreme leader following Ali Khamenei's death—an unusually direct challenge to one of the Islamic Republic's most closely guarded episodes.
President Masoud Pezeshkian, meanwhile, was reported to have traveled to Qom, Iran's center of religious authority, where senior officials often seek the backing of influential clerics during periods of political tension.
The visit suggests the government is also seeking to shore up clerical support as it navigates the increasingly contentious politics surrounding the post-war settlement.
The competing statements—and the storm they triggered within the hardline camp—suggest that arguments over the memorandum with Washington, and over who has the authority to define and defend Mojtaba Khamenei's red lines, have reached institutions that traditionally operate behind closed doors.
For a body long associated with silence and unanimity, the public split offers a rare glimpse into the political strains emerging inside the Islamic Republic's highest clerical establishment.
The return of Iranian-American academic Hooshang Amirahmadi, a longtime advocate of US-Iran normalization, has stirred debate in Tehran, with establishment media divided over the merits of welcoming him back and the signal his visit sends.
Amirahmadi is a retired Rutgers University professor and founder of the American Iranian Council, whose shifting political positions over the years have made him a controversial figure.
Before his latest trip, Amirahmadi said his goal was not friendship between Tehran and Washington but the normalization of diplomatic relations.
"Friendly relations are different from normal relations," he said in an interview with Voice of America before traveling to Iran, adding that he hoped his ideas could help normalize ties between the two countries.
Read the full article here.
The return of Iranian-American academic Hooshang Amirahmadi, a longtime advocate of US-Iran normalization, has stirred debate in Tehran, with establishment media divided over the merits of welcoming him back and the signal his visit sends.
Amirahmadi is a retired Rutgers University professor and founder of the American Iranian Council, whose shifting political positions over the years have made him a controversial figure.
Before his latest trip, Amirahmadi said his goal was not friendship between Tehran and Washington but the normalization of diplomatic relations.
"Friendly relations are different from normal relations," he said in an interview with Voice of America before traveling to Iran, adding that he hoped his ideas could help normalize ties between the two countries. He declined to say which groups inside Iran he had been speaking with.
While some pro-government media portray him as an opposition figure, some government opponents view him as an apologist for the Islamic Republic, citing his occasional defense of its leadership and institutions, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
In 2019, he attended rallies organized by Iranian opposition groups abroad and described himself as a supporter of regime change. After the killing of Qassem Soleimani, however, he publicly defended both the late commander and the IRGC in media interviews.
In a recent interview with Iran's hardline Student News Network (SNN) following his return, Amirahmadi referred to slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as a "martyr" and argued that "history will gradually prove that Iranians misunderstood him."
He also accused government opponents of failing to understand the realities of Iranian society.
Some conservative outlets portrayed his visit as evidence that critics of the Islamic Republic were recognizing political realities inside Iran.
SNN wrote that Amirahmadi's return "is not an ordinary event," arguing that remaining within the opposition abroad without clearly distancing oneself from groups hostile to the Islamic Republic risked being interpreted as indirect alignment with the country's enemies.
"In these circumstances, returning to the embrace of the Iranian nation and redefining one's relationship with the realities inside the country has become an unavoidable necessity," it wrote.
Not all conservative media welcomed his return. Hardline newspaper Kayhan questioned why authorities had allowed Amirahmadi into the country.
"What is Houshang Amirahmadi, America's broker and Western operative, seeking by traveling to Iran?" the newspaper wrote. "Officials must remain vigilant against this longtime spy of the Great Satan."
Some social media users rejected attempts to portray him as an opposition figure and argued that his return served the government's efforts to weaken the exiled opposition.
"They brought Houshang Amirahmadi back to Iran so they can claim the country has become a paradise and tell all opponents to return as well," one X user, Omid Roshan, wrote. "They want people to believe resistance against the government no longer works and that everyone should repent and come back."
Describing himself as a reformist, Amirahmadi unsuccessfully sought Iran's presidency in 2005, 2013 and 2017, but the Guardian Council disqualified him on each occasion.
Reports surrounding the 2005 election cited his US citizenship and some of his political positions among the factors believed to have contributed to the decision.
Some linked his return to growing speculation that Tehran and Washington could eventually restore full diplomatic relations and reopen their embassies.
"The interests of the Iranian and American people require normal diplomatic relations between the two countries," Siamak Shojaei, a university professor in Iran, wrote on X. "I hope Amirahmadi succeeds this time."
A mourning site set up near the place where Ali Khamenei was killed has been shut down after shroud-wearing ultra-hardliners turned it into a three-day sit-in, exposing a widening rift inside Iran’s loyalist camp over how to use the slain leader’s memory.
The site, known as Ravagh Keshvardoust, had been turned into a shrine-like space in central Tehran for prayer, mourning and ritual gatherings after Khamenei’s killing.
In Iranian religious architecture, a ravagh usually refers to a covered hall or portico attached to a shrine. In this case, the term was being used for a temporary devotional space around the site of Khamenei’s death.
According to Jamaran, a news outlet close to the family of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini, organizers closed the site after a group of kafan-poushan, or shroud-wearers, arrived from Mashhad on Ashura (June 25) and occupied the space under the banner of “avenging the blood of the slain leader.”
Read the full article here.
A mourning site set up near the place where Ali Khamenei was killed has been shut down after shroud-wearing ultra-hardliners turned it into a three-day sit-in, exposing a widening rift inside Iran’s loyalist camp over how to use the slain leader’s memory.
The site, known as Ravagh Keshvardoust, had been turned into a shrine-like space in central Tehran for prayer, mourning and ritual gatherings after Khamenei’s killing. In Iranian religious architecture, a ravagh usually refers to a covered hall or portico attached to a shrine. In this case, the term was being used for a temporary devotional space around the site of Khamenei’s death.
According to Jamaran, a news outlet close to the family of the Islamic Republic’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini, organizers closed the site after a group of kafan-poushan, or shroud-wearers, arrived from Mashhad on Ashura (June 25) and occupied the space under the banner of “avenging the blood of the slain leader.”
The term kafan-poushan refers to activists who wear white burial shrouds in political or religious demonstrations, presenting themselves as ready for death or martyrdom. The symbolism has long been used by hardline factions in the Islamic Republic, especially when they want to frame a political demand as a sacred duty.
Organizers said the group’s three-day sit-in changed the function of the site. What had been a place for prayer, mourning, daily ceremonies and congregational prayers became, in their words, a place for overnight stays, food distribution and protest equipment. They said repeated requests and mediation failed to persuade the protesters to leave.
The decision to close the site was presented as an effort to protect the sanctity of a site named after the slain leader. But politically, it showed something more sensitive: even parts of the pro-Khamenei establishment now appear to see some of the most radical mourners as disruptive, not useful.
The conflict is not between supporters and opponents of the Islamic Republic. It is between two loyalist currents.
One side wants Khamenei’s death to be used as a managed symbol of unity, grief and continuity under the new leadership. The other wants to turn that grief into a permanent pressure campaign against officials accused of compromise, especially over talks with the United States and the interim memorandum meant to end the war.
That split has been visible for weeks.
Ultra-hardline figures linked to the Paydari Front have attacked the negotiating team led by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, accusing them of crossing the late leader’s red lines. Some protesters at hardline rallies have chanted against Ghalibaf and Araghchi, asking what happened to “the blood” of their leader. Some went further, calling for their death or execution.
Iran International previously reported that supporters of the Paydari Front were removed from nightly state-organized rallies in Tehran after requests by President Masoud Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf, in an apparent attempt to contain pressure from the ultra-hardline street while talks with Washington continued.
The same divide has appeared in parliament and in the media. Lawmakers close to the ultra-hardline camp have accused Ghalibaf of keeping parliament closed to shield negotiations from criticism. Conservative activist Mohammad Mohajeri accused hardline lawmakers of trying to use parliament’s podium for factional purposes after the US-Iran memorandum.
Earlier, Iran International reported that the dispute had spilled into a public clash between Raja News, close to Saeed Jalili’s ultraconservative camp, and the IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency. The argument centered on how far Iran should go in negotiations and whether maximalist demands, including sweeping sanctions relief and regional ceasefires, were realistic.
The closure of the site brings that fight into the religious arena.
State-linked outlets had spent weeks giving the site a sacred vocabulary. Some described it as a place where mourners could approach the “killing site” of the slain leader. Others compared it to Tel Zaynabiyya, a deeply emotional reference in Shiite memory. In Karbala, Tel Zaynabiyya is associated with the place from which Zaynab, the sister of Imam Hussein, is believed to have witnessed the battlefield after Hussein’s killing in 680. Using that phrase for Khamenei’s death places the site inside the language of Ashura, martyrdom and sacred grief.
Ashura is not just a mourning ritual in the Islamic Republic’s political culture. It is also a vocabulary of legitimacy, sacrifice and confrontation. Since 1979, the state has repeatedly used the story of Imam Hussein’s stand at Karbala to frame political loyalty as moral resistance and compromise as betrayal.
But the Keshvardoust dispute shows the risk of that language for the state itself. Once Khamenei’s death is framed as a sacred wound demanding revenge, the most radical loyalists can use the same symbolism against the government, parliament speaker, foreign minister or any official seen as too “pragmatic.”
That is why the incident is politically revealing. The establishment wants mourning that strengthens the system. The ultra-hardliners want mourning that disciplines the system.
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