Iran on Friday laid to rest its former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over four months after his killing in an airstrike, as two days of US and Iranian attacks raised fears of a return to all-out war.
Khamenei’s flag-covered coffin was carried aloft into the shrine of Imam Reza in his home city of Mashhad in eastern Iran as a sea of people waited outside and listened to prayers, with no sign of a public appearance by his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei.
The “body of the martyred leader of the Islamic Revolution was buried in the memorial hall of the shrine of Imam Reza,” state broadcaster IRIB reported.
The burial came after a second day of tit-for-tat attacks by Washington and Tehran’s forces, with Iranian officials reporting that US strikes killed 17 people and state media saying one targeted a railway line between Tehran and Mashhad.
The Islamic republic said it had resumed attacks targeting US assets in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, while sirens blared in Jordan — another American ally — where the military said it had intercepted eight missiles launched from Iran.
Khamenei was killed alongside close family members on the first day of the US-Israeli war against Iran on February 28.
The last of a marathon six days of funeral ceremonies, Khamenei’s burial in Mashhad was closely watched for signs of Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to appear in public since being appointed.
Parliament speaker and chief negotiator in talks with the United States, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, powerful chief justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, and Khamenei’s eldest son Mostafa Khamenei were all present at the shrine, with some senior figures weeping over Khamenei’s coffin, state TV images showed.
But as on other days of the funeral process, there was no sign of Mojtaba Khamenei, who since being named has only communicated through written statements and is said to have been wounded in the February 28 strikes.
Crowds of men and women clad in black, many urging vengeances against US President Donald Trump, had massed in Mashhad against the backdrop of slogans including: “Hey Trump we will kill you,” written in English, AFP correspondents said.
The Wall Street Journal meanwhile reported Thursday, based on anonymous sources, that Israel told the United States that their intelligence had detected a new Iranian plot to kill Trump.
