Mourners thronged a vast prayer complex in Tehran on Saturday as the week-long funeral ceremonies of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei began with the national anthem, religious eulogies and readings from the Koran.
Funeral Processions
Iran is staging mass funeral processions for Khamenei, whose 37-year reign was brought to an end in February by the first airstrike of the war launched by the U.S. and Israel, in a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic’s theocratic state and revolutionary zeal.
Television footage showed his coffin draped with the Iranian flag and topped with his black turban. It was placed, along with four other coffins of his slain family members, on a large black platform that resembled the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure at the centre of Islam’s holiest site in Mecca.
The vast courtyard of the complex, the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla, was filled with mourners, many waving Iranian flags and carrying photographs of the slain leader.
“Death to America” chants echoed through Tehran’s Mosalla on the day of the farewell to “Mr. Martyr,” state broadcaster Seda va Sima said.
Mourners were also heard chanting: “Our slogan is one word: Revenge, revenge,” and “We will kill, we will kill he who killed our Imam.”
Khamenei’s coffin will remain in the Mosalla until Sunday evening. His body was expected to be taken to Qom, Najaf and Kerbala, the great Shi’ite centres of Iran and Iraq, before being laid to rest on Thursday in Mashhad, home to the country’s holiest pilgrim shrine.
Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
