APTOPIX Iran Khamenei Funeral

The funeral for Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has started, months after his death in an airstrike on the first day of the war. The body of Khamenei, who was 86, is on display in Tehran, Iran’s capital, on Saturday at the start funeral commemorations that will end on Thursday when he is buried at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his place of birth. Iran’s government expects to see millions of people flood the streets of Tehran in scenes reminiscent of the burial of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. That could provide a boost for Iran’s government as it tries to leverage its hold on the Strait of Hormuz in negotiations with the United States over a permanent end to the war.

A performer at the funeral for the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called for the death of U.S. President Donald Trump before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people Sunday in Iran's capital, Tehran. Iran is holding a prayer service for Khamenei before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people in the capital, Tehran. Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, a 97-year-old Shiite cleric, led the prayer Sunday at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla. Khamenei’s flag-draped coffin, in a glass case like those of his late family members, sat before the crowd on a dais. A far-larger crowd for the funeral attended the ceremony Sunday, with echoing cries of “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”