Huge crowds fill Tehran streets for Khamenei's funeral procession

Huge crowds have lined the streets of Tehran for the funeral procession of Iran's late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war with the US and Israel.

Footage from Iranian state TV showed many tens of thousands of mourners gathered to watch Khamenei's flag-draped coffin being transported by a lorry along a 10km (6-mile) route that passed through the capital's landmark Enghelab Square.

The procession took place after his body lay in state for two days at Tehran's Grand Mosalla mosque.

Three of Khamenei's sons prayed beside his coffin there on Sunday. But Mojtaba, the son who succeeded him as supreme leader, did not make an appearance.

He has not been seen in public since he was reportedly seriously wounded in the same Israeli air strike in Tehran on 28 February that killed his father and his wife.

Khamenei's funeral procession wended its way slowly through central Tehran, from Imam Hossein Square in the east to Azadi Square in the west, on the last of three days of public mourning in the capital.

State media reported that millions of mourners filled the main boulevards connecting the squares and crowded around the black lorry that carried the coffin of the late supreme leader and four family members.

Many people were waving Iranian flags and red banners symbolising vengeance.

There were also placards saying "We must rise" and others calling for the death of US President Donald Trump, who, along with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered a joint attack on Iran four months ago that triggered a war in which thousands were killed.

Mourners were also seen throwing stones at a billboard displaying Trump's face that was hung from a bridge. "The US killed our father. We won't let you go!" it read.

"I came with honour and pride to show all the people of the world how much we loved him and how committed we are to the system, the people, and the Islamic Republic," Melika Nourian, a 22-year-old university student, told the AFP news agency.

Former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was seen at the procession, local media reported. It appeared to be his first major public appearance since the start of the war, when three of his bodyguards were reportedly killed in a strike near his home.

Iran's current president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was also filmed walking among a group of mourners on a Tehran street.

Earlier, he wrote on X that Khamenei had taught everyone in Iran that the country's "greatest asset" was "its people and their unity". He promised that Iranians would "continue the path of Iran's honour, progress, and glory".

Other senior figures shown by state media included Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei and Brig-Gen Esmail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards' overseas operations arm.

But there was again no sign of Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not appeared on video or in public since before his appointment and communicates mainly through written statements.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Ali Khamenei was "eliminated by Israel" because he had threatened its existence. "Any Iranian leader who will again try to pursue plans to destroy Israel will be killed as well," he added.

Ali Khamenei, who was 86, became supreme leader in 1989 after the death of the Islamic Republic's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

He maintained a firm grip on Iran's politics and its armed forces, and suppressed domestic challenges, sometimes violently. He also took consistently hard-line stances on external matters, including Iran's confrontation with the US and Israel.

Iran's ruling establishment wants the funeral ceremonies for him to send a message of strength following the war as well as the mass protests that swept across the country in January, when thousands of people were killed in a crackdown by security forces.

Qom Friday prayer leader Ayatollah Mohammad Saidi declared last week that large turnouts "will, in effect, be another referendum for the Islamic Republic".

The ceremonies are taking place less than three weeks after Iran and the US signed a preliminary agreement to end the war and reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz waterway, through which 20% of global oil and gas shipments pass.

The two countries also gave themselves two months to reach a final deal that covers Iran's nuclear programme, US sanctions and a permanent truce.

Mediator Qatar said Iranian and US negotiators made "positive progress" at indirect talks in Doha last week following a four-day exchange of strikes and that their next meeting would be scheduled after the conclusion of the ceremonies for Khamenei.

On Tuesday, there will be another funeral procession and prayers in the central city of Qom, the centre of Iran's Shia Muslim clerical establishment, where Khamenei's body was flown by helicopter on Monday evening.

The ceremonies will then move to the Iraqi shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf on Wednesday.

They will end on Thursday, when Khamenei will be buried at the Imam Reza shrine in his home city of Mashhad, in north-eastern Iran.