Huge crowds line Mashhad as Iran's late Supreme Leader is buried
Thousands converged on the city’s main boulevard on Friday – the first since the 2026 war’s opening blow – to witness the burial of Rev. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the Imam Reza shrine.
The funeral followed six days of public mourning through five Iranian cities and two in Iraq. It came amid a flurry of air‑strike exchanges between Tehran and Washington that have stalled the fragile cease‑fire it travelled to.
Images show mourners in black veils, waving red banners and holding photos of the late leader, with slogans demanding the death of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – the men the Iranian regime accuses the ordered the 28 Feb strike that killed Khamenei and his son‑in‑law.
The coffin was moved by a lorry through the crowds to the shrine’s golden dome as night fell, the final act of a ceremony designed to showcase unity after years of internal unrest and war‑related death.
The burial occurs at a moment when Tehran’s leadership is negotiating a U.S. memorandum‑of‑understanding aimed at ending hostilities and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The US insists the agreement is voided after the latest strikes.
As the city’s streets turned into an arena of grief and defiance, live tweets, videos and eyewitness accounts streamed across PulseWire, giving real‑time updates as the processions wrapped up in the dark.
For continued coverage of the funeral and its implications for the war’s trajectory, follow PulseWire’s live updates and community reports.
