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)

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The commemoration ceremony to honour the late Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, traditionally held 40 days after death, was held in Colombo on Thursday (09).

The ceremony was held at the Iranian Cultural Centre in Colombo under the patronage of the Ambassador of Iran, Alireza Delkosh. 

Several Sri Lankan dignitaries, including politician Wimal Weerawansa, attended the event. 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei served as the second supreme leader of Iran from 1989 until his assassination in 2026, which triggered the war between Iran, the USA, and Israel. (Newswire)

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United National Party Leader and former President Ranil Wickremesinghe visited the Iranian Embassy in Colombo this morning (05 Mar) to convey condolences on the passing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Wickremesinghe, who served as Sri Lanka’s 8th Executive President, met with Iranian Ambassador Alireza Delkosh during his visit.

During the visit, he expressed his sympathies on behalf of Sri Lanka. (Newswire)

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The body of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s slain supreme leader, will be on display starting Wednesday night in Tehran, signalling the beginning of the funeral process as the country escalates retaliatory attacks against Israel and U.S. military bases in the region.

Iran’s state television announced that the farewell viewing would last for three days and be held in a large compound in central Tehran, where the former leader often delivered public speeches and led prayers.

Also Wednesday, Iran’s senior Shiite clerics pressed on in the search for his successor. An announcement could come later in the day, and Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, the son of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was considered a front-runner, according to three Iranian officials familiar with the deliberations. 

The new leader would take the helm not just as Iran’s new religious and political authority but as the commander in chief of its armed forces.

On Tuesday, President Trump said that many of Iran’s potential new leaders had been killed in the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign that began on Saturday. He added that the next supreme leader could be “as bad” as their predecessors — a striking admission of uncertainty over how the war will unfold and what will follow it.

The Israeli and U.S. bombardment of Iran continued early Wednesday, as did Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone barrage across the Gulf region. The Israeli military said it had launched attacks on dozens of targets belonging to the Basij, a state-run Iranian paramilitary force, and the country’s internal security forces. 

The Basij played a major role in the deadly crackdown on the recent antigovernment protests in Iran.

The Israeli military said that projectiles from Iran and Lebanon were identified crossing into the country, but that most were intercepted. Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said it had intercepted and destroyed two cruise missiles and ten drones. The source of those attacks was not immediately clear.

Several countries were struggling to get hundreds of thousands of people out of the region. The State Department said it was facilitating charter fights from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, after President Trump was asked on Tuesday why the government was not helping Americans evacuate. It later said that nonessential government employees and the families of all employees in Saudi Arabia and Oman were authorized to leave those countries because of safety risks.

Latest updates on the ongoing conflict:

• Trump letter: In a letter to Congress, Trump said the strikes on Iran were carried out because of “the threat to the United States” and U.S. forces in the region, and to advance U.S. national interests and “in collective self-defence of our regional allies, including Israel.” He also said it was “not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that may be necessary.” Officials with access to U.S. intelligence have said that Trump exaggerated the immediacy of any threat Iran posed to the United States.
• Navy escorts? President Trump said the United States might deploy its Navy to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway south of Iran through which a fifth of the world’s oil travels. Tanker traffic through the strait has nearly stopped because of the fear the ships might be attacked.
• Death toll: The Red Crescent Society, Iran’s main humanitarian relief organization, said the death toll had risen to 787 since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks. The bombing of a girls’ elementary school in Iran killed at least 175 people. Dozens of people in Lebanon also have been killed, according to the Lebanese health ministry, in Israel’s retaliatory strikes against Hezbollah. 
• Americans killed: Six U.S. service members have been killed in the conflict. The Defense Department released the names of four Army Reserve soldiers who were killed over the weekend in Kuwait in a drone attack on U.S. military facilities. The slain soldiers were Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Fla.; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Neb.; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minn.; and Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa. All four were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command in Des Moines, Iowa.
• U.S. damage: Iranian strikes conducted over the weekend and on Monday damaged structures that are part of or near communication and radar systems on at least seven U.S. military sites across the Middle East, according to a New York Times analysis of satellite imagery and verified videos. (New York Times)

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