Funeral for slain Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei set for July, as deal to end war nears
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- Iran's IRIB state television said funeral, burial, and farewell ceremonies for former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will run July 4-9, with the procession moving from Tehran through Qom to Mashhad
- Khamenei was killed in the opening salvo of a war Israel and the United States launched against Iran in late February; he will be buried at the Imam Reza Shrine, with his daughter and son-in-law — also killed in those strikes — laid to rest the same day
- He has been replaced by his son Mojtaba, described as 'even less compromising,' even as mediators say a deal to end the war is close
- Khamenei took power after Ayatollah Khomeini's 1989 death, ruled far longer, and built the Revolutionary Guard into a 'military and business behemoth' controlling Iran's ballistic missile arsenal and key economic sectors
Why it matters: Iran is burying Khamenei at the holiest Shia shrine while mediators say a US-Iran war-ending deal is close — but his replacement by 'even less compromising' son Mojtaba means any agreement may face a harder counterpart. The same-day funeral for his daughter and son-in-law, killed in the February strikes that opened the war, fuses a political succession with a mass religious ceremony.
