Khamenei’s Cortege Reaches Qom as His Heir Stays Invisible
Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral procession moved to the shrine city of Qom after Monday’s vast Tehran procession, where crowds marched beneath red banners demanding vengeance — the coffin travels on to Iraq’s shrine cities before Thursday’s burial in Mashhad. Reports from inside Iran describe chaotic planning and political tension around the ceremonies. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared at any point in the funeral week.
Six days of choreography have delivered the crowds the regime wanted and exposed the question it cannot answer: where is the supreme leader? An absence that spans his own father’s entire funeral — with Israel’s defence minister publicly threatening his life — has moved from curiosity to the central fact of Iranian politics, and the reported disorder behind the ceremonies suggests the institutions beneath him feel it. The US-Iran talks resume after Thursday’s burial, against the backdrop of this morning’s tanker strike in the strait Tehran claims to control. Watch Mashhad on Thursday — and who leads the burial prayers if Mojtaba does not.