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Millions gathered in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala on Wednesday — the sixth day of funeral ceremonies — as the procession made its final stop before Khamenei's burial in Mashhad. Mourners chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" lined the streets of Najaf as his glass-encased coffin passed on a large truck, with prayers held at the Shrine of Imam Ali. The ceremonies unfolded against a sharp deterioration in the fragile US-Iran ceasefire: following attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the US struck dozens of Iranian military targets in retaliation, and Iran responded by attacking American facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait. President Trump declared Wednesday that he believed the three-week-old preliminary agreement to end the war was "over," while Iran's parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf accused Washington of violating the deal.
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Khamenei's coffin traveled to Qom on Monday before a second funeral prayer was held Tuesday morning at the Jamkaran Mosque, one of Shia Islam's most sacred sites, led by prominent jurist Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli. The procession then continued to Najaf, Iraq, where Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaydi and other political and religious leaders received the body at the airport alongside Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was forced to cut short his visit following renewed US strikes on Iran. Khamenei's son and designated successor, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has not appeared publicly during any of the ceremonies and is reported to be in hiding after being wounded in the strike that killed his father. The coffin is scheduled to return to Iran for burial Thursday at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, the city of Khamenei's birth.
Vast crowds descended on Tehran on Sunday for the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader for nearly four decades, who was killed on 28 February in joint US-Israeli strikes that triggered a war between Iran and the two allies. Hundreds of thousands of mourners packed the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla — a sprawling, still-unfinished mosque in the Iranian capital whose incomplete construction, delayed by decades of sanctions, stands as a symbol of the country's prolonged conflict with the West. The funeral procession, expected to last 10 to 12 hours, formed part of a week-long series of ceremonies designed to project national resilience and unity in the face of what Iranian officials have called a war of aggression.
The atmosphere melded grief with political fury. Mourners dressed in black carried Iranian flags and banners honouring Khamenei, while others waved red flags symbolising vengeance. Chants of
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