TEHRAN — Huge crowds gathered in the eastern holy city of Mashhad on Thursday as Iran prepares to bury slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The burial in Khamenei’s hometown on Thursday follows a week of mass funeral processions, rallies and mourning ceremonies held across Iran, including a day dedicated to neighboring Iraq.
The final stage of the funeral procession for Khamenei was delayed by several hours on Thursday after days of public ceremonies that drew hundreds of thousands of mourners.
The delay was because of large crowds on Wednesday in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, Iranian state media reported on Thursday, hours after a new round of strikes between the United States and Iran.
Iranian officials said that US forces had struck two railway bridges on the line between Tehran, the capital, and Mashhad overnight, disrupting passenger services.
The US military did not say whether it had struck the bridges. But the delay, and the apparent disruption for travelers, cast a shadow over the tightly organized funeral program, which Iran has sought to present as a show of defiance against the United States.
On Thursday, tens of thousands of mourners gathered before dawn in Mashhad, in northeastern Iran, filling streets, mosques and the sprawling Imam Reza Shrine, where his body will be buried.
Iran’s state broadcaster, IRIB, reported that the funeral procession through the city would begin at 2 p.m. local time, eight hours later than planned.
Despite a promised pause in US attacks, Khamenei’s burial ceremony comes after the US and Iran traded attacks for a second day.
After massive processions in Iraq’s holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, Khamenei’s remains arrived on Thursday at Mashhad international airport, footage shared by the official news agency IRNA showed.
Iraq’s paramilitary group Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), or Hashd al-Shaabi, said on Wednesday more than 2.3 million people took part in Khamenei’s funeral procession in Najaf alone.
Crowds marched through Mashhad on Thursday morning, waving Iranian flags, photographs of Khamenei and placards with revolutionary slogans.
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The mourners also chanted slogans demanding vengeance against US President Donald Trump for his role in the assassination.
“I swear by the blood of the supreme leader, Trump, we will kill you,” they shouted, with women holding up placards reading “Kill Trump”.
The incumbent supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has been notably absent from the processions. He has not yet appeared in public since taking over days after his father’s assassination.
Officials have said he was wounded in the air strikes that killed his father, but the severity of his injuries remains unclear.
Source: Saudi Gazette