Vast crowds converged on the holy city of Mashhad today for the burial of Iran's late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His interment at the revered Imam Reza shrine, Iran's most sacred Shia Muslim site, brought to a close six days of public mourning ceremonies that spanned five cities in Iran and neighbouring Iraq.
The burial, reported by Iran's state news agency IRNA, unfolded amid a concerning escalation of strikes between Iran and the United States. These renewed hostilities threaten to undermine a preliminary agreement aimed at de-escalating the conflict in which Khamenei was killed. Earlier, Iran's Revolutionary Guards accused the US of bombing two railway bridges overnight on the line connecting the capital, Tehran, to Mashhad, an act they claimed was intended to 'overshadow' the funeral proceedings.
Khamenei, along with several members of his family, perished in an Israeli strike on his Tehran residence on 28 February. This attack marked the initial day of Iran's current conflict with the US and Israel. He has been succeeded as supreme leader by his son, Mojtaba, who has not made a public appearance since reports indicated he was seriously wounded in the same incident. Mojtaba, aged 56, did not participate in the funeral ceremonies held in Tehran and Qom, and there was no indication of his presence at the burial.
On Thursday morning, a flight carrying the coffins of Ali Khamenei, his granddaughter, son-in-law, daughter, and Mojtaba's wife arrived in Mashhad after extensive processions in Iraq, where large numbers of mourners gathered at Shia shrines in Najaf and Karbala. Iranian television footage later in the day showed thousands of mourners, clad in black, parading along a central boulevard in Mashhad. Many carried Iranian flags and red banners symbolising vengeance, while some displayed photographs of the late leader and placards calling for the death of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who jointly ordered the attack four months ago that ignited the war.
The Iranian leadership had meticulously planned these funeral ceremonies to project an image of unity and strength following a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives, and mass protests in January where a security forces crackdown resulted in thousands more fatalities. However, the public mourning period has been marred by a resurgence of hostilities with the US. President Trump warned that US attacks could intensify significantly after a second night of strikes on Thursday, which the US military stated were designed to diminish Iran's capacity to target commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. In retaliation, the Revolutionary Guards announced that Iranian forces had attacked US military facilities and infrastructure in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.