Millions of people massed in the Iranian capital on Monday to mourn Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader, with many carrying signs calling for vengeance for his killing early in the war launched by the United States and Israel.
Huge crowds thronged a truck carrying the ayatollah’s coffin as it traveled slowly through the jam-packed streets of Tehran. Posters at the procession displayed images of Ayatollah Khamenei and a clenched fist.
Mourners carried portraits depicting President Trump and Vice President JD Vance behind cross hairs. “There will be blood,” read one English-language slogan that was frequently displayed, next to an image of Mr. Trump.
Iranian officers sprayed water to try to cool down the flag-waving mourners as temperatures soared over 90 degrees.
The weeklong funeral has been intricately choreographed by the government both to honor a ruler who crushed dissent and expanded Iran’s hard-line Islamist and anti-Western policies and to project national unity and defiance.
Ayatollah Khamenei led Iran for more than 37 years until Feb. 28, when he was killed on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli attack. The United States and Iran have since reached a fragile cease-fire, though talks aimed at a lasting peace have been paused until after the funeral ceremonies.
Later this week, the ayatollah’s coffin will be taken to several cities in Iran and neighboring Iraq that are significant to Shiite Muslims before his body is buried in Mashhad, a city of over three million people in northeastern Iran, where the ayatollah was born in 1939. Shiite Muslims revere Mashhad as Iran’s holiest city because of its close association with Imam Reza, one of 12 religious leaders considered by Shiites to be spiritual heirs of the Prophet Muhammad.
Apart from his political power, Ayatollah Khamenei wielded considerable religious authority for Shiite Muslims. The mourners who streamed into Tehran on Monday had traveled from Iraq, Yemen, India and Pakistan, which have large Shiite populations, as well as from African nations such as Senegal and Nigeria, which have smaller ones.
Notably absent was the former supreme leader’s son and successor, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. He has not been seen in public since Israeli forces bombed the family’s compound in Tehran and killed his father. The younger Ayatollah Khamenei is believed to have been seriously wounded in that strike.
Other current and former Iranian officials were present. A video shared by Iranian state television showed President Masoud Pezeshkian walking down the street during the procession, shaking hands with members of the crowd.
A former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also attended. He was injured in an Israeli strike in February that was intended to free him from house arrest, U.S. officials have said. The New York Times later reported on a failed Israeli plan to install Mr. Ahmadinejad as Iran’s leader, despite his history of hard-line anti-American and anti-Israeli statements.
Though exalted by many Iranians, Ayatollah Khamenei was also despised by many others for having presided over a brutal authoritarian regime. In January, Iranian security forces violently suppressed mass antigovernment protests, killing thousands, according to Iranian officials and human rights groups.
The Times was granted access to the funeral ceremonies by Iran’s government, which determined the events the reporters, accompanied by a government-provided translator and a guide, could attend. The views expressed by people interviewed at the events may not be representative of many Iranians, while others may have felt unable to speak freely.
In phone interviews, some Iranians said that they were dismayed by all the pageantry, and that they found the grand procession demoralizing and infuriating.
“They are burying someone who is responsible for the massacre of January,” said Mahzad, 28, an artist in Tehran. Like others interviewed by phone, he asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of repercussions. “They have been treating the families who have lost their children horribly,” he said.
Mehdi, a 45-year-old former political prisoner who lives in Tehran, said the funeral procession had passed through places where protests and clashes with the government had taken place.
“The same security forces who are spraying water and handing food to the funeral attendees today were shooting at our youth a few months ago, in the very same location,” he said.
Roham Alvandi, a professor of Iranian history at the London School of Economics, said the official messaging of the funeral, portraying Ayatollah Khamenei as a martyr deserving of revenge, was in part intended to legitimize his son.
Some of the posters at the procession also sought to disparage Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel by linking them to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender.
Moustafa Ayad, a Middle East expert at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a research group in London, said the Epstein message was common among supporters of the Iranian government.
“It’s a longstanding narrative intended to highlight Western degeneracy in contrast to the moral purity of Iran’s clerical regime,” he said. It was also intended, he said, to draw attention to what Iran perceives as one of Mr. Trump’s political vulnerabilities.
Rozhin Rezai and Michael Levenson contributed reporting.
