Iran Has Buried Its Assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei After A Six-Day Funeral Attended By Millions

Iran held a six-day funeral attended by millions of people for its assassinated supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei more than four months after he was killed in a joint US-Israeli strike.

Khamenei has been Iran’s supreme leader, the country's top political and religious authority, above even the president, since 1989 and his rule was marked by brutality, crackdowns on dissent and strict laws, especially during Iran’s 2022 protests that rocked the country following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

He was assassinated on Feb. 28, when the US and Israel launched an unprovoked war on Iran, bombing over 500 sites, including his residence in Tehran, killing him with his daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and a grandchild in the same strike.

At the time, the government declared a 40-day mourning period and a week-long public holiday, and originally planned to hold Khamenei's funeral in early March, but the fighting between Iran, Israel and the US continued for weeks.

On June 14, the US and Iran agreed to an interim peace deal brokered by Pakistan called the memorandum of understanding to end more war between them.

After the deal was announced, Iranian officials set a new funeral date, including a week of ceremonies running from Saturday, July 4 through Thursday, July 9.

The funeral opened with three days of mourning in Tehran, where Khamenei's coffin, alongside those of his family members, lay in state at the Grand Mosalla, a huge mosque and prayer complex, for public viewing.

A procession then carried his remains through Tehran and on to Qom, a center of Shia religious scholarship south of the capital, and from there, his body crossed into Iraq for ceremonies in Najaf and Karbala, two of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, before returning to Iran for burial at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, Khamenei's hometown.

His eldest son, Mostafa, led the funeral prayer, and Khamenei and the four family members killed alongside him were buried in the early hours of Friday, July 10, Iran's official news agency IRNA said.

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