The body of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, arrived at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla on Friday ahead of a state funeral expected to draw millions of mourners and foreign dignitaries, according to Iranian state media….
The body of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, arrived at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla on Friday ahead of a state funeral expected to draw millions of mourners and foreign dignitaries, according to Iranian state media.
Khamenei, who was killed in joint US-Israeli strikes that sparked the Middle East war, will be honoured at an official funeral on Saturday after ceremonies were postponed during the height of the conflict.
Images released by state media showed mourners carrying his coffin, draped in Iran’s tricolour flag, into the Grand Mosalla, one of the country’s most significant religious and ceremonial venues. Other photographs captured crowds dressed in black gathered around the coffin, surrounded by red flowers and decorative white butterflies.
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The funeral preparations come as Iran and the United States observe a fragile ceasefire following a preliminary agreement aimed at ending the conflict.
Iranian authorities said Khamenei’s body will lie in state at the Grand Mosalla for three days. The remains of his relatives, who were also killed, will be displayed alongside his coffin.
Among those paying tribute was Ahmad Vahidi, head of the Revolutionary Guards, who made his first public appearance since the outbreak of the war in February by visiting the coffin, according to Iranian media.
Several countries are expected to be represented at the funeral. Pakistan confirmed that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif would attend the ceremony, while China, Afghanistan and several of Iran’s neighbours in the Caucasus also announced plans to send delegations.
As preparations intensified, workers decorated the Grand Mosalla while security personnel tightened access around the venue.
“We are planting flowers and watering the shrubs for the farewell ceremony of our martyred guide,” worker Hossein Moghadassi said.
“People will come from all over Iran. There will be huge crowds.”
Ahead of the funeral, Iran’s chief negotiator and Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, urged citizens to participate in large numbers.
He called on “all the Iranian people… to write a glorious page in the history of Islamic Iran through your presence”.
“The nation’s call for vengeance must ring in the ears of the whole world,” Ghalibaf added in a statement.
Khamenei, regarded as a spiritual leader by many Shia Muslims, died at the age of 86 after strikes targeted his compound in central Tehran.
His funeral is expected to be one of the largest state ceremonies in Iran’s history.
TVC News Online had earlier reported that the ceremonies are expected to draw between 15 and 20 million mourners, according to officials, which would make it the biggest state funeral in the country’s history.
Tehran, as well as the holy cities of Qom and Mashhad, which will host later stages of the funeral and the burial ceremonies, will observe public holidays while the events are underway.
Authorities have ordered public and private offices in Tehran to close from Saturday through Monday, while traffic restrictions will make much of the city centre inaccessible to private vehicles.
The airspace over Tehran will be partially closed from Friday and fully closed on Monday.
Following the ceremonies in Tehran, Khamenei’s body will be taken to the Iraqi holy cities of Najaf and Karbala before his burial on July 9 at the shrine of Imam Reza in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, his birthplace.
