Tehran prepares for Khamenei funeral as security tightens at Grand Mosalla

TEHRAN: Preparations were underway at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla on Thursday ahead of funeral rites for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with security stepped up around the vast religious complex where his body is due to lie in state from Saturday.

According to AFP, dozens of security personnel were deployed at the main entrance, stopping vehicles one by one and requiring passengers to show special permits before entering the site, which has not yet been opened to the public. The funeral arrangements were being made during an intense heatwave, with workers continuing their tasks as temperatures rose.

Inside the complex, large portraits of the late Iranian leader had been hung on the walls alongside black mourning flags and red banners associated with martyrdom and vengeance. One image showed Khamenei, then serving as president, standing with young fighters during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

Hossein Moghadassi, who said he had been working at the site for several days, described the preparations for the ceremony.

“We are planting flowers and watering the shrubs for the farewell ceremony of our martyred guide”, he stated.

He was wearing a hat and face covering as the heat intensified. Trucks were also seen bringing in hundreds of boxes of drinking water ahead of Saturday, when temperatures are expected to rise above 35 degrees Celsius. Saturday will also mark the first of six days of national mourning.

Moghadassi said people were expected to travel from across the country for the funeral.

“People will come from all over Iran. There will be huge crowds”, he added.

Authorities are expecting between 15 million and 20 million people to take part in the funeral in Tehran alone. The gates of the Grand Mosalla are scheduled to open at 6am local time on Saturday.

Dozens of ambulances and rescue vehicles had also been stationed inside the compound in anticipation of the large crowds. Black banners displayed some of Khamenei’s well-known sayings, while a widely repeated image showed the late leader with a raised fist, presented as a sign of resistance to the West. Other banners carried the message: We are mourning, but we remain on our feet.

Organisers said the mosque inside the Mosalla complex will house Khamenei’s remains for three days for pilgrims. A funeral procession is due to move through Tehran on Monday before continuing to the Shia holy city of Qom on Tuesday.

Khamenei is scheduled to be buried on July 9 in Mashhad, in northeastern Iran, which is also his birthplace and one of the country’s holiest cities. He was killed in US-Israeli strikes on February 28.

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who is also the country’s top negotiator in talks with the United States, called for a large public turnout on Thursday and described it as a response to Khamenei’s killing.

“I invite all the Iranian people… to write a glorious page in the history of Islamic Iran through your presence”, Ghalibaf said.