Iran prepares to bury slain supreme leader with week of mass mourning

DUBAI, July 2 - Iran's ruling clerics are preparing days of mass funeral rites for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic and proof that its revolutionary fervor still burns strong.

Iran's supreme leader was killed by U.S. and Israeli strikes in their first attack of the war and the funeral events will begin over the weekend in Tehran, with mass processions planned next week in Qom and Mashhad and ceremonies in Iraq.

"The large public turnout at the funeral procession of the martyred leader and the other martyrs will, in effect, be another referendum for the Islamic Republic," Qom Friday prayer leader Ayatollah Mohammad Saidi declared to state media.

If they do see it as a referendum, authorities are not leaving the result to chance.

They hope to mobilise millions of supporters to flood Iran's cities, laying on transport, accommodation and food, to proclaim the might of their theocratic state after it survived what they saw as an existential war.

Khamenei's death, and the succession of his son Mojtaba as Iran's third supreme leader, in a conflict with its greatest foes, mark an epochal moment in the Islamic Republic's 47-year history. Mojtaba, dangerously wounded in the strike that killed his father, has not been seen in any new image since the war began.

But behind the veneer of unity and devotion, public support for the Islamic Republic has worn paper thin, analysts say.

Across the country, many Iranians are tired of decades of sanctions throttling their economy and angry at the repression meted out in the name of a 1979 revolution that only older people in a mostly young population can remember.

When people poured onto the streets in December and January in demonstrations triggered by inflation, many were chanting for the death of Khamenei and authorities could only crush the unrest by shooting thousands of protesters.

After news of Khamenei's killing began to circulate in the first days of the war, Tehran residents reported sounds of cheering erupting from behind the windows of houses and apartments in parts of the city.

Now Tehran is tense and quiet, a sharp contrast with the emotional last burial of a supreme leader — the father of the revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Then, millions of sobbing people mobbed Khomeini's funeral procession and some climbed on the ambulance, the dead leader's naked leg spilling from his shroud as Revolutionary Guards battled to push back the crowd.

Samira, 35, whose husband owns a restaurant in Tehran, said her family did not plan to attend any funeral events and was leaving Tehran for the week. "It is like life has stopped and there are Basijis everywhere," she said, referring to the voluntary militia organisation affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.

MASS PROCESSIONS PLANNED ACROSS SEVERAL CITIES

In Iran's theocratic system, Khamenei was not only head of state and leader of a revolutionary movement, but the representative on earth for Shi'ite Islam's 12th imam who disappeared in the ninth century.

Khamenei's death in an enemy attack plays into a powerful Shi'ite tradition of martyrdom and mourning, in which processions of black-clad flagellants beat their chests or backs during annual religious commemorations.

That potent symbolism has been evident in the black funeral flags hanging over city streets since his death and in mourning ceremonies for him referencing the martyrdom of Shi'ism's third imam, Hossein.

On Thursday, workers were stringing up new posters in Tehran proclaiming support for the new leader Mojtaba, with the images of the late Khamenei and a raised revolutionary fist behind him.

For supporters of the Islamic Republic, the talk of martyrdom is no mere rhetoric.

"These are the hardest days of my life," said Mohsen, 24, a Basij member in Tehran who asked not to give his family name.

"I do not remember the time when Imam Khomeini passed away but my father says the entire country was engulfed in grief and mourning. Today, too, people are in mourning, especially because our leader was martyred," he added.

Officials and foreign dignitaries, including from Russia and China, will offer condolences in events on Friday.

On Saturday, Khamenei's remains will be taken to a Tehran mosque for the first stop in a national funerary tour. The bodies of his daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, as well as the widow of the new leader, his son Mojtaba, who were all killed in the same strike, will be carried alongside.

Hotels are offering 50% discounts, schools, mosques and sports halls have been prepared to house mourners, and bus and rail networks are being diverted to serve the main events.

After what authorities are billing as a massive procession in central Tehran on Monday, the remains will be taken to the seminary city of Qom, the centre of Iran's Shi'ite hierarchy, for ceremonies on Tuesday.

Ceremonies will then be held in Iraq's shrine cities of Najaf and Kerbala on Wednesday with prominent attendees from Iran's regional network of Shi'ite proxies. He will be buried on Thursday, after another procession, in Mashhad near the tomb of the Imam Reza, a figure of great devotion in Iran.

Security will be tight, with temporary airspace restrictions in place over Tehran and other cities and threats of a powerful response if either the United States or Israel resumes attacks.

"We are showing our power to America and others in our own way," said Hossein Kheiri, 63, a veteran of the 1980-88 war with Iraq, standing under a poster of Khamenei in Tehran. REUTERS