Tehran, Iran - Vast crowds of Iranians loyal to the ruling regime massed in Tehran on Saturday to kick off a week of funeral ceremonies to commemorate slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Clad in black and waving blood-red flags seen as a call for vengeance and justice, mourners thronged the Grand Mosalla complex in the Iranian capital, AFP reports.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who had ruled Iran since 1989 and pursued a course of confrontation with the West, was killed along with several members of his family and top officials in an Israeli strike on the war's first day.
There was still no sign of Khamenei's son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei, who has been unseen in public since being named supreme leader.
Other top Iranian officials welcomed foreign dignitaries who paid their respects at the coffin on Friday before the complex opened to the public.
Among them was Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who attended a funeral ceremony and wrote on X that "The late Supreme Leader’s wisdom, leadership, and profound influence on Iran and the wider region will be remembered for generations."
Sprayed with mists of water to keep cool in temperatures that may nudge 100 degrees in Tehran over the next days, thousands of women and men filled the vast complex to pay their respects.
AFP photographs showed the coffins of Khamenei and four other family members at the front on a dais.
The funeral ceremonies will see the coffin remain three days in Tehran, before moving Tuesday to the clerical city of Qom, then Wednesday to neighboring Iraq, before burial on Thursday in Khamenei's home city of Mashhad.
"The leader was a father to us all. With his passing, we have all been left orphaned," said Mohammad Mirsalehi, a 38-year-old cleric. "There was no one like him. He was truly unique and peerless."