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Iran's slain supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was buried at the country's holiest shrine early Friday, state media said, after huge crowds gathered for funeral ceremonies. Meanwhile, his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, remained hidden from public view.
The burial in Mashhad, in northeast Iran, followed a week of mass funeral processions, rallies and mourning ceremonies that coincided with a renewed burst of conflict with the United States after weeks of truce in the four-month-old war.
Khamenei was killed in the first strikes of the war launched by the United States and Israel on Feb. 28. The U.S. and Iran agreed to a truce last month.
Khamenei's body was carried slowly by truck Thursday through packed streets in Mashhad toward the gilt dome and minarets of the Shrine of Imam Reza, as white-turbaned clerics walked on either side.
Black-clad mourners pressed close behind, waving Iranian flags, photographs of the late Khamenei and red placards with revolutionary slogans.
The burial marked the end of a week of funeral events in Iran and Iraq. The Islamic Republic's clerical leaders encouraged huge crowds to attend the ceremonies in an effort to display the strength and ideological fervor of the state.
The shrine's courtyard was filled with mourners as dusk fell, with chants of "Death to America" heard above funeral laments and string music broadcast by loudspeakers.
A helicopter lifted Khamenei's coffin from the truck over the crowd for the final short stretch to a blue-tiled arched recess at the shrine.
Khamenei's oldest son, Mostafa, said the funeral prayer. A group of male mourners then carried the coffin, painted in the red, white and green of Iran's flag, inside the shrine.
Video footage showed many inside holding candles, weeping, and stretching their arms toward the coffin.
The official IRNA news agency reported early Friday that the burials of Khamenei and the four family members killed alongside him had been completed.
The whereabouts of Mojtaba Khamenei, who was proclaimed supreme leader by a clerical assembly in early March, a week after his father's death, have remained unclear to Iranians.
He has not appeared in public since the war began. While he has issued written statements, no image, video or voice recording of him has been released.
Senior sources in Tehran have said he is recovering from debilitating injuries suffered in the strike that killed his father, leaving his face disfigured and his limbs badly wounded.
The sources said Mojtaba Khamenei has not yet been well enough to manage public appearances. State security services are also trying to limit his exposure in case of more U.S. attacks.
As crowds gathered in Mashhad awaiting Khamenei's funeral cortege, mourners chanted slogans demanding revenge against U.S. President Donald Trump over the killing.
"I swear by the blood of the supreme leader, Trump, we will kill you!" they shouted, while women held placards reading "Kill Trump."
Khamenei's remains were previously paraded through Tehran, the Shiite Muslim clerical center of Qom and the Iraqi shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala.
The funeral came at a critical moment for Iran, closing nearly four decades of Khamenei's rule and coming months after the latest round of mass nationwide protests against the Islamic Republic.
Security forces put down the unrest, which was sparked by anger over the sanctions-hit economy, by allegedly killing thousands of demonstrators in a wave of repression that echoed other bouts of violence in recent years.
Analysts see Iran as having emerged from the war with the U.S. strategically strengthened, with its control over the vital Strait of Hormuz intact. But the country has also suffered widespread damage that has added to internal economic problems.
Khamenei was appointed supreme leader in 1989, a decade after the Islamic Revolution. Over the decades, he consolidated political, economic and military power in his office.
That effort, which increasingly marginalized the elected president and parliament, was carried out in concert with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which grew in influence throughout Khamenei's rule.
Mojtaba Khamenei was appointed with the backing of the IRGC, who are now seen as the dominant force in Iranian political and strategic thinking.
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