Sea of black-clad mourners fills Tehran streets

Mourners dressed in black flooded into Iran’s Capital Monday for a procession as part of the funeral of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with throngs of people calling for the death of US President Donald Trump.

Khamenei’s flag-draped coffin and those of members of his family killed Feb. 28 in an airstrike at the start of the war launched by Israel and the United States sat on board a truck decorated to resemble the ornamental grating that surrounds the shrine of an imam. The massive turnout, encouraged by Iran’s theocracy as a sign of strength, came as it negotiates with the US over a permanent end to the war that killed the 86-year-old cleric.

Helicopter images aired on Iranian state television showed a massive crowd stretching from Tehran’s Azadi, or Freedom, Square for kilometers (miles) down a multilane street of the same name. The crowd appeared to be larger than the one that turned out for the 2020 procession for the late Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Solemani, which drew over 1 million people.

Authorities offered no immediate crowd count as the truck crept down the street. But people alongside the truck and elsewhere on the route carried placards, signs and banners calling for Trump’s death. “Today that we are here for the funeral for our leader, it’s a very tough day,” mourner Fatima Hassan said. “We are not here to say goodbye to him, we are here for revenge. And we will take revenge.”

Sea of mourners greets Khamenei

Mourners reached out to touch the truck, and some threw scarves and other items for attendants to brush against the coffin, a common practice in Iran seen as a blessing. Attendants, some on the ladders of firetrucks, sprayed misted water across the crowds to cool them in the heat. Authorities appeared concerned about the dangers of having a large crowd alongside the procession, with officials on loudspeakers urging the public to walk slowly, not to push and to stay to the edges of the street. The coffins will be taken through the streets of Tehran on a 12-hour journey to Mehrabad International Airport, said Revolutionary Guard Gen. Hasan Hasanzadeh, who is overseeing the procession.

Authorities have shut down streets, airspace and daily life for the mourning, which began Saturday and will end Thursday as Khamenei is buried at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his birthplace. “This is the last time I am seeing him,” said a weeping Maryam Alizadeh. “Our generation lived with him for decades.”