Iranians will bid farewell to late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at a ceremony in Tehran late on Wednesday. The farewell ceremony will begin on March 4 at 10:00 PM local time and will take place at the Imam Khomeini Complex in Tehran, according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim.
Details regarding the funeral of Khamenei will be announced after the final arrangements for the ceremony are made, as stated by the Islamic Propaganda Coordination Council.
Khamenei’s funeral will take place in Mashhad, the second-largest city in Iran and his birthplace. Iranian media report that he will likely be buried at the Imam Reza Shrine, where his father is also interred. The exact date of the funeral has not yet been disclosed.
The former Supreme Leader of Iran was killed in his residence on February 28 during missile strikes carried out by the U.S. and Israel. Iranian media reported that Khamenei was in his office at the time of the attack.
The missile strike also claimed the lives of his daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter, and one of his daughters-in-law. His wife, Mansoureh Khodjasteh Bagherzadeh, succumbed to her injuries several days later.
In the wake of Khamenei's death, the Iranian government declared a 40-day period of national mourning.
Following his death, Iran is being governed by a temporary council composed of President Masoud Pezeshkian, Head of the Judiciary Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, and member of the Guardian Council Ayatollah Alireza Arafi.
Meanwhile, CNN, citing Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency (FNA) reported on March 4 that a group of senior Iranian officials has been meeting virtually to select a new supreme leader after the initial US-Israel strikes killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, is reportedly among a small handful of clerics tipped as likely successors.
