3 of Khamenei’s sons join top leaders at Tehran funeral, but not his successor Mojtaba

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s top officials and brothers of the country’s new supreme leader emerged into public view Sunday to attend the funeral prayers for the late ayatollah Ali Khamenei, signaling a new confidence in their safety as calls grew for the killing of US President Donald Trump.

Their presence before hundreds of thousands of people in the capital Tehran would have been unthinkable during the Iran war, which saw airstrikes in its opening moments on February 28 kill the 86-year-old Khamenei, his family members, and other officials.

Israel also targeted others who appeared publicly during the war, in at least one case likely using their public appearance to fix their position for a strike.

But still unseen was Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. He is believed to be in hiding after being wounded in the airstrike that killed his father. His face was disfigured, and he suffered a significant injury to one or both legs, people close to his inner circle told Reuters.

Israel has threatened to kill him as well, as he leads a theocracy now negotiating with the United States over a permanent end to the war and over Iran strangling traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global energy supplies.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition

by email and never miss our top stories

By signing up, you agree to the terms

Ziba Naderi, a 42-year-old nurse attending the funeral Sunday, said Iran needed to follow whatever Mojtaba Khamenei commands regarding the nation.

“I heard the call for revenge, but our leader should say what we need to do,” she said. “And we must listen to him.”

Funeral includes prayers and calls for revenge

Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, a 97-year-old Shiite cleric, led the prayers at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla for Khamenei and his late family members.

On hand were Khamenei’s sons Masoud, Meysam, and Mostafa, who haven’t been seen since the war. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps head Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, who had only been photographed for the first time since the war on Thursday, could be seen in the crowd by Associated Press journalists, flanked by plainclothes security forces as he wore a black baseball cap.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Esmail Qaani, who leads the IRGC’s expeditionary Quds Force, also attended.

Their appearances came as posters and graffiti at the Grand Mosalla called for the killing of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mohammad Rasouli, a poet who emceed the event prior to the prayers, drew calls of “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Speaking to the crowd over loudspeakers at the funeral, Rasouli asked, referring to Trump, “Why is the most bastard man in the world still alive?”

The question drew cheers from the crowd, and again when Rasouli said “the world is no longer a good place for” Trump. It marked the first direct threat to Trump’s life by an official during the funeral.

Trump threats grow at funeral

The American president was giving a speech at the same time across the world in Washington, DC, for the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.

“We’ve had tremendous success,” Trump said about the US military. “You look at Venezuela, you look at Iran. We wiped it out, wiped out their military.”

A far larger crowd for Khamenei’s funeral than the day before attended Sunday.

Mourners dressed in black walked to the site, carrying banners and flags honoring Khamenei and also calling for Trump’s killing.

“I came here to shout and seek revenge,” said Gholamreza Sabooni, a 29-year-old man who works in a grocery. “They killed our imam; we should kill their leader, Trump.”

US federal authorities have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and other administration officials for years. That stems from Trump ordering the 2020 killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who had led the Quds Force. Iran repeatedly has denied plotting to kill Trump, though hardline propaganda footage long has suggested Trump was in Tehran’s crosshairs.

Trump, meanwhile, promised to destroy Iran’s very civilization during the war, among a variety of other threats.

Funeral postpones talks with US

Khamenei’s body will be transported to cities in Iran and neighboring Iraq, with authorities planning to drive his casket and others through the streets of Tehran on Monday. Authorities have shut down streets, airspace, and daily life for the mourning, which will end Thursday as he is buried at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, Khamenei’s place of birth.

Authorities offered no attendance count for the event on Saturday and Sunday, but have said they expect more than 10 million people to take part in ceremonies in Tehran.

Significant security measures have been imposed in the capital, and official media has warned attendees of the risk of crowd crushes.

Organizers have also taken measures to mitigate a heatwave that may nudge 40°C in Tehran over the next few days, with crowds on Saturday and Sunday sprayed with mists of water to keep cool at the Grand Mosalla complex.

Other cities across Iran also held mourning ceremonies.

For now, talks over reaching a permanent end to the war are on hold until the end of the funeral. Having a major turnout could prove important as Iran tries to leverage its hold on the Strait of Hormuz in negotiations, as concern lingers that Israel could attack again.

“Our foreign policy should not be shaped in a way that allows our martyred leader’s blood to be dishonored and other countries can afford to do such things, without any serious response from our government and diplomatic system,” mourner Mohammad Reza Sharifi said.

The US and Israel launched the war on Iran in late February in a bid to destabilize its leadership and destroy its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. The fighting entered a truce on April 8, and the US and Iran are engaged in peace talks based on the memorandum of understanding they reached last month.

Israel is not a party to the memorandum or the talks, and Israeli officials have criticized the document for failing to secure a concrete concession from Iran on its nuclear program.

Agencies and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.