Iran leaders reappear at Khamenei funeral as anti-Trump threats rise

Tehran,UPDATED: Jul 5, 2026 16:14 IST

Iran's top officials and the brothers of the country's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, appeared in public on Sunday for funeral prayers for the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, signalling greater confidence in their safety even as calls for the killing of US President Donald Trump grew at the gathering.

The appearance before hundreds of thousands of mourners in Tehran marked a sharp shift from the Iran war, when such a show would have been unthinkable. In the opening moments of the war on February 28, air strikes killed the 86-year-old Khamenei, members of his family and other officials. Israel also targeted others who appeared in public during the war, in at least one case likely using a public appearance to fix a person's location for a strike. Mojtaba Khamenei was still not seen on Sunday. He is believed to be in hiding after reportedly being wounded in the air strike that killed his father, and Israel has threatened to kill him as well as Iran negotiates with the United States over a permanent end to the war and over Tehran's disruption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Ziba Naderi, a 42-year-old nurse attending the funeral, said the country needed to follow whatever Mojtaba Khamenei ordered. 'I heard the call for revenge, but our leader should say what we need to do,' she said. 'And we must listen to him.'

Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, a 97-year-old Shiite cleric, led the prayers at Tehran's Grand Mosalla for Khamenei and his late family members. Present there were Khamenei's sons Masoud, Meysam and Mostafa, who had not been seen since the war. Revolutionary Guard chief Gen Ahmad Vahidi, who had been photographed for the first time since the war only on Thursday, was also seen in the crowd by Associated Press journalists, flanked by plainclothes security personnel and wearing a black baseball cap. Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Esmail Qaani, who leads the Guard's Quds Force, also attended.

Posters and graffiti at the Grand Mosalla called for the killing of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mohammad Rasouli, a poet who compered the event before the prayers, drew chants of 'Death to America!' and 'Death to Israel!' Speaking over loudspeakers, Rasouli asked, referring to Trump, 'Why is the most bastard man in the world still alive?' The question drew cheers from the crowd, and again when Rasouli said 'the world is no longer a good place for' Trump. The report said it was the first direct threat to Trump's life by an official during the funeral.

At the same time, Trump was speaking in Washington, DC, during the 250th anniversary of America's founding. 'We've had tremendous success,' Trump said about the US military. 'You look at Venezuela, you look at Iran. We wiped it out, wiped out their military.'

A much larger crowd attended Sunday's funeral than the day before. Mourners dressed in black walked to the site carrying banners and flags honouring Khamenei and also calling for Trump's killing. 'I came here to shout and seek revenge,' said Gholamreza Sabooni, a 29-year-old grocery worker. 'They killed our imam, we should kill their leader, Trump.' US federal authorities have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and other administration officials for years, linked to Trump's order in 2020 to kill Gen Qassem Soleimani, who had led the Quds Force. Iran has repeatedly denied plotting to kill Trump, though hard-line propaganda footage has long suggested he was in Tehran's crosshairs. Trump, meanwhile, had threatened during the war to destroy Iran's civilisation, among other warnings.

Khamenei's body will now be taken to cities in Iran and neighbouring Iraq, and authorities plan to drive his casket and others through the streets of Tehran on Monday. Streets, airspace and daily life have been shut down for the mourning period, which will end on Thursday when he is buried at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his birthplace. Authorities gave no attendance figures for the events on Saturday and Sunday, though other cities across Iran also held mourning ceremonies. Talks on a permanent end to the war are on hold until the funeral ends. A large turnout could matter as Iran tries to use its hold on the Strait of Hormuz in negotiations while concern remains that Israel could strike again. 'Our foreign policy should not be shaped in a way that allows our martyred leader's blood to be dishonoured and other countries can afford to do such things, without any serious response from our government and diplomatic system,' mourner Mohammad Reza Sharifi said.

Sunday's funeral brought Iran's top leadership back into public view, sharpened calls for revenge against Trump and delayed talks with the United States, even as Mojtaba Khamenei remained out of sight ahead of the final burial ceremonies later this week.

With PTI Inputs

- Ends