Blitz Bureau
Huge crowds lined the streets of Tehran on July 6 for the funeral procession of Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war with the US and Israel.
Footage from Iranian state TV showed many tens of thousands of mourners gathered to watch Khamenei’s Àag-draped coႈn being transported by a lorry along a 10km (6-mile) route that passed through the capital’s landmark Enghelab Square.
The procession took place after his body lay in state for two days at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla mosque.
Three of Khamenei’s sons prayed beside his coႈn there on July 5. But Mojtaba, the son who succeeded him as supreme leader, did not make an appearance. He has not been seen in public since he was reportedly seriously wounded in the same Israeli air strike in Tehran on 28 February that killed his father and his wife.
Many people were waving Iranian Àags and red banners symbolising vengeance.
There were also placards saying “We must rise” and others calling for the death of US President Donald Trump, who, along with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered a joint attack on Iran four months ago that triggered a war in which thousands were killed. Ceremonies were held in Qom, the centre of Iran’s Shia Muslim clerical establishment and Iraqi shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf.
