Iran begins days of funeral ceremonies for assassinated former leader Khamenei

Iran on Friday began several days of ceremonies for Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late February and whose death the government confirmed on March 1. His casket was placed on display at a religious complex in Tehran, and state media said the body would be moved through the capital and then to the seminary city of Qom, to Karbala in Iraq, and finally to Mashhad for burial, according to The Hindu.

Iranian state coverage framed the funeral as a demonstration of national unity. Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, met delegations from China, Namibia and Afghanistan and thanked those governments for condemning what he called the recent US and Israeli attacks on Iran as violations of the United Nations Charter, IRNA reported. Universities in Tehran prepared to house tens of thousands of mourners.

More than 100 countries were expected to send representatives, Al Jazeera reported, and India confirmed it had dispatched a delegation. The scale of foreign attendance underscores that Iran remains central to regional politics even after the loss of the figure who set its direction for more than three decades.

The mourning is taking place under an uneasy calm. A US-brokered de-escalation has held long enough to allow shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to recover and a further round of talks to be scheduled, but the settlement remains reversible and contested by factions inside Iran.