Tehran, Iran. Large crowds marched through Tehran on Monday in a funeral procession for slain leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the biggest day so far of a week of memorial ceremonies. State television drone footage showed many tens of thousands of people filling a central boulevard.
Funeral procession in Tehran
The coffins of Khamenei and four of his family members were driven through the streets on a large truck, while fire hoses sprayed water from above to keep marchers cool.
As the procession passed under a bridge, mourners hurled stones at a billboard showing U.S. President Donald Trump with a bullet aimed at his head. The billboard read: “The U.S. killed our father. We won’t let you go!”
Symbols and slogans
The crowds waved Iranian flags and red banners bearing a slogan calling out to the “avengers of Khamenei,” adapting a phrase central to Shi’ite Islam since the killing in battle of the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century.
Appearance of Khamenei’s sons
On Sunday, three sons of the slain leader prayed beside his coffin at a large prayer hall in Tehran.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the son who succeeded him as Iran’s supreme leader, did not appear. He is believed to have been disfigured by wounds in the attack that killed his father and has not been seen in public since the war began on February 28 with Israeli and U.S. airstrikes on Iran.
Memorial events since Friday
The mourning ceremonies began on Friday, when the coffins of the elder Khamenei, one of his daughters and her 14-month-old child, one of his sons-in-law, and the wife of Mojtaba lay in state for Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries.
Further large-scale ceremonies were held outdoors on Saturday and Sunday before Monday’s funeral procession.