{"id":671512,"date":"2026-07-03T11:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T11:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/671512\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T11:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T11:04:20","slug":"iran-begins-public-mourning-for-ayatollah-killed-in-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/671512\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran begins public mourning for Ayatollah killed in February"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Khamenei&#8217;s body will then travel to Najaf in Iraq on Wednesday. Following a procession at the shrine of Imam Ali, Shia Islam&#8217;s first imam, ceremonies will continue in Karbala before the body returns to Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Iranian officials say the Iraq events follow requests from Iraqi groups, with some analysts seeing them as representative of Khamenei&#8217;s influence across the Shia Muslim world and Iran&#8217;s religious and political ties across the region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Baghdad to coordinate the arrangements, saying the funeral had a &#8220;symbolic importance&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Thursday, Khamenei will be buried in the city of his birth, Mashhad, at the Imam Reza Shrine, the mausoleum of Shia Islam&#8217;s eighth imam and Iran&#8217;s most important pilgrimage site, which attracts millions of visitors each year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Representatives from multiple countries are expected to attend the ceremonies, including Pakistan&#8217;s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ceremonies will continue across the country for 40 days, with commemorative events planned until the first anniversary of Khamenei&#8217;s burial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamenei&#8217;s body will then travel to Najaf in Iraq on Wednesday. Following a procession at the shrine of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-671512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}