Former Iranian President Ahmadinejad spotted at Khamenei’s funeral procession

Iran’s former president has appeared at the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei despite having been reported killed at the start of the war. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of millions of mourners who poured into Tehran dressed in black on Monday to escort the slain supreme leader’s coffin through the capital. The former hardline president, who governed from 2005 to 2013, was declared dead by several Iranian state-affiliated media outlets on the opening day of the war, when Israeli and US strikes killed Khamenei and much of the country’s leadership. It was thought he had been killed when a missile struck near his home. He was never seen or heard from in the months that followed, and no official confirmation or denial of his fate was issued, leaving his status among the many uncertainties of the war’s chaotic first days. On Monday, however, he was seen in public for the first time since the war, moving among the mourners in a jacket with a mask pulled down to his throat. His reappearance came a day after the country’s other living former presidents – Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani – were absent from the ceremonies, to which critics said they had not been invited. Mr Ahmadinejad emerged into one of the largest funerals in the country’s history. Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, joined the crowds too, photographed riding on the back of a motorbike to move through the crowd. Along the route, mourners strung up an effigy of Donald Trump and waved banners calling for his death. Khamenei’s flag-draped coffin, and those of family members killed alongside him on Feb 28 sat atop a truck decorated to resemble the ornamental grating around an imam’s shrine. Helicopter footage on state television showed the crowd stretching for miles in central Tehran. Authorities predicted the event could draw as many as 20 million people. Mr Trump had hoped the war would topple the Islamic Republic, but the sea of mourners showed the extent to which he had been misled about the mood inside Iran. The demand for revenge was everywhere in Tehran. A banner several metres long declared: “We will kill Trump,” and red flags – the colour of revenge in Shia tradition – rippled through the throng. The coffins were driven from Damavand Street through Imam Hussein Square, down Enghelab (Revolution) Avenue and on to Azadi (Freedom) Square, past a towering monument of Khamenei’s clenched fist erected in Revolution Square. The monument’s base was inscribed with the names of schoolgirls killed when American missiles hit their school during the war. Along Enghelab, organisers had lined the avenue with portraits of the dead – the fallen of two recent wars and of the “resistance” allies Iran backs across the region. The procession moved at a crawl as the truck repeatedly slowed or stopped, mourners surging to touch it and shower it with flowers. In Azadi Square, the vehicle halted entirely so more people could reach it. Some tossed scarves for guards to brush against the coffin – a gesture seen as a blessing – while crews on firetruck ladders misted water over the crowd against the July heat. Officials on loudspeakers urged people to walk slowly, not to push and to keep to the edges of the street, wary of the dangers of such a vast crowd. Hasan Hasanzadeh, the Revolutionary Guard general overseeing the procession, said the coffins would travel a 12-hour route through Tehran to Mehrabad International Airport. Much of the senior leadership walked in the procession, including Masoud Pezeshkian, the president, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, the judiciary chief, Sadegh Larijani, head of the expediency council and Esmail Qaani, the Quds Force commander, along with a large slate of cabinet ministers. Still absent was Iran’s new supreme leader. Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen since he was chosen to succeed his father. His three brothers – Mostafa, Masoud and Meysam – took their places in the front row at the funeral prayer on Sunday, their faces streaked with tears as they appeared in public for the first time since their father was killed. The mourning began on Saturday and is to end on Thursday with Khamenei’s burial at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his birthplace, after ceremonies in Qom and the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala. (Telegraph)