Thousands join funeral procession of Iran's assassinated supreme leader Ali Khamenei in Qom

Tehran (Web Desk/Web Desk): Thousands of people assembled in Iran's holy city of Qom on Tuesday as the nation observed the fourth day of extensive funeral ceremonies for former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei, who was assassinated in US-Israeli attack on February 28, is lying in state at the Jamkaran Mosque. 
The mosque is located in Qom, a city regarded as the spiritual centre of Shia Islam and home to some of its most prominent seminaries and sacred shrines.

Footage broadcast by Iranian state television showed vast crowds filling the streets of the city, which has a population of approximately 1.5 million, as mourners gathered to pay their respects.

Inside the Jamkaran Mosque, a prayer ceremony was led by Grand Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi-Amoli, the 93-year-old conservative Shia cleric who remains one of Iran's most influential religious figures.

During the service, thousands of participants repeatedly chanted "Death to America," a slogan that has long been a fixture of official political and religious events in the Islamic Republic.

Television images also captured mourners, including numerous clerics in traditional turbans, offering prayers beside the coffins of Khamenei and four of his relatives who were killed in the same attack. Among them was his granddaughter, who was reportedly only 14 months old.

After the prayers concluded, a funeral procession escorted a truck carrying the bodies to the shrine of Fatima Masumeh, the sister of Imam Reza, the eighth Shia Imam and a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.

The ceremony in Qom came a day after an enormous funeral procession in Tehran, where authorities sought to highlight national solidarity and resilience following the recent war and the widespread anti-government protests that swept the country six months earlier.

The turnout in the Iranian capital was comparable to the funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic and Khamenei's predecessor, whose burial in 1989 drew millions of mourners.

Despite the ongoing ceremonies, Khamenei's son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, has remained absent from public view since taking over the country's leadership in early March.

Iranian officials have stated that he suffered injuries in the airstrike that killed his father, and it is still uncertain whether he will appear during the remaining funeral events.

Another funeral procession is planned for Wednesday in neighbouring Iraq, where the country's large Shia population is expected to participate in commemorations.

The funeral rites will conclude on Thursday with Khamenei's burial in his hometown of Mashhad, a revered city in northeastern Iran.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led the country for more than 30 years before his death at the age of 86.