Iranians wept, patted their chests and waved flags in Tehran this Saturday as they gathered to mourn Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader who ruled Iran for 37 years before a United States (US)-Israeli airstrike killed him in February.

Crowds filled the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla, where the flag-draped coffins of Khamenei and the family members killed alongside him were laid in state.

Iran is staging a week of mass funeral processions for Khamenei in a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic’s theocratic state and revolutionary zeal.

Khamenei’s body was expected to be taken to Qom, Najaf and Kerbala, the great Shi’ite centres of Iran and Iraq, before being laid to rest on Thursday in Mashhad, home to the country’s holiest pilgrimage shrine.

The funeral is taking place at a critical moment for Iran, where the clerical rulers backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are riding high from surviving what they saw as an existential war against their greatest and most powerful foes.

–Reuters–