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Mourners wrestle over Khamenei’s coffin during funeral procession
Farewell to supreme leader extends into cities of Najaf and Karbala in neighbouring Iraq, home to a large Shia population
Mourners wrestled over the coffin of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during his funeral in Iraq’s holy cities on Wednesday.
Thousands of people carried his body aloft as crowds surged in 45C heat in the Iraqi Shia cities of Najaf and Karbala.
A sea of mourners dressed in black moved in waves through the streets, each straining to touch the coffin in search of a blessing as it was carried inside the shrine of Imam Ali.
On at least two occasions, the pallbearers came very close to dropping the coffin as the throng heaved around them.
When the body entered the shrine, the organisers appeared to lose control of proceedings.
Mourners forced the coffin into a place for prayers amid a chaotic press of bodies, and aerial footage showed it being rushed back outside soon afterwards.
At one point, the kaffiyeh and turban that had been laid over the coffin were pulled away, and a man in black lifted them above his head, holding them aloft for others to kiss.
The Iraqi leg extended a marathon farewell to Khamenei that moved across two Iranian cities and into neighbouring Iraq, home to a large Shia population.
The supreme leader was killed on Feb 28, the opening day of the US-Israeli war on Iran, along with several family members, and his body was held for months before the funeral, which began on Saturday.
The procession through Iraq was a deliberate show of strength by Iranian authorities.
The Islamic Republic has long presented itself as the leader of the wider Shia world and the patron of a regional “axis of resistance”.
Staging Khamenei’s farewell at the shrines that anchor Shia devotion in Iraq allowed Tehran to claim a transnational authority beyond its borders even as it emerged bloodied from the war.
The vast crowds abroad served the same purpose as the millions at home who have gathered in the past few days, standing in defiance of Donald Trump’s bet that the war would topple the Islamic Republic.
Yet the near-anarchic scenes at the shrine underscored the risk that shadows every stage of the mourning period.
Iran has a history of funeral crushes – 56 people were killed in a stampede at the 2020 burial of Qassem Soleimani, and mourners tore at the shroud at the 1989 funeral of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, forcing his body to be flown out.
The proceedings return to Iran for the final act on Thursday, when Khamenei is to be buried in his birthplace of Mashhad, at the shrine of Imam Reza.
The question hanging over the entire week is whether his reclusive son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, will appear in his father’s burial procession.
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
