Iranians want revenge for the funeral ceremonies of a supreme leader who was killed during the war
Senior Iranian officials and the new leader’s brothers appeared in public on Sunday to attend the funeral prayer for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Their appearance reflected confidence in their safety as Iran backed down from US demands in talks to end the war permanently.
Crowds of hundreds of thousands chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” as they sought revenge for the Feb. 28 which killed the 86-year-old supreme leader and other senior officials, and the war started. Some diplomats say that US President Donald Trump should be killed.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has yet to appear at the funeral, which takes place in a few days. He is believed to be in hiding after reportedly being injured in an airstrike that killed his father.
At the height of the war, before the end of April, Israel targeted senior leaders, in at least one case who may have used their public appearances to correct their position. It also threatened to kill the younger Khamenei.
Meanwhile the US is pushing ahead with talks with Iran aimed at fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz and rolling back its disputed nuclear program.
Ziba Naderi, a 42-year-old nurse who attended the funeral on Sunday, said Iran needs to obey Mojtaba Khamenei’s orders. “I heard the call for revenge, but our leader has to say what we have to do,” he said. “And we must listen to him.”
Senior officers appear as the population grows
Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, a 97-year-old Shiite cleric, led prayers at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla for the late Khamenei and his family members killed in the strike.
On hand were Khamenei’s other sons, Masoud, Meysam and Mostafa, who have not been seen since the war began. The head of the Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, who was photographed for the first time since the war on Thursday, could be seen in the crowd by Associated Press reporters, flanked by plainclothes soldiers and wearing a black baseball cap.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf – who led the talks with the US – and Esmail Qaani, who heads the elite Quds Force of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, were also present.
The crowd had grown since the day before. Black-clad mourners carried flags and flags in honor of Khamenei.
Others called Trump by name as mourners sought revenge
Posters and graffiti in Grand Mosalla called for the assassination of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Why is the biggest bastard in the world still alive?” Mohammad Rasouli, a poet who welcomed the event before the prayer, said to the crowd using microphones, referring to Trump. “The world is no longer a good place” for Trump, he added as the crowd cheered.
“I came here to shout for revenge,” said Gholamreza Sabooni, a 29-year-old man who works in a shop. “They killed our imam, we have to kill their leader, Trump.”
The American president was delivering a speech at the same time around the world in Washington, DC, during the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.
“We’ve had great success,” Trump said of the US military. “You look at Venezuela, you look at Iran. We eliminated them, we eliminated their soldiers.”
US authorities have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and other administration officials for years. That’s from Trump ordering the killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who led the Quds Force in 2020. Iran has repeatedly denied planning to assassinate Trump, although hard-line propaganda has long suggested Trump is in Tehran’s crosshairs.
Meanwhile Trump has promised to destroy Iran’s civilization during war, among other threats.
The funeral postpones talks with the US
Khamenei’s body will be transported to cities in Iran and neighboring Iraq, and authorities plan to drive his coffin with others through the streets of Tehran on Monday. Authorities closed roads, the airport and daily life in mourning, which will end on Thursday as he is buried at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, where Khamenei was born.
Authorities did not give the number of people who attended the event on Saturday and Sunday. Other cities across Iran also held mourning ceremonies.
Talks about ending the war seem to have stalled until after the funeral.
The funeral was partly a show of unity and disrespect as Iran seeks a measure of control over the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway the world power blocked during the war. The US has rejected those demands, and the sides are divided over other key issues, including the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran’s nuclear program.
The United States has assisted the passage of 70 people in the Strait of Hormuz in the past 72 hours, including 18 on Saturday, an international maritime organization overseen by the US Navy said on Sunday. It called traffic stable on routes near Oman and Iran but still below pre-war levels. The threat level remained “high” and demining and exploration continued.
“Our foreign policy should not be shaped in a way that allows the blood of our martyred leader to be disrespected and other countries are able to do things like this, without a deep response from our government and our international relations program,” said mourner Mohammad Reza Sharifi.
