New Iran leader absent as other sons pay respects to Khamenei
Three sons of former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei on July 5 made a rare public appearance at his funeral but there was still no sign of their brother and his successor Mojtaba Khamenei.
Crowds of thousands for the second day in a row filled the Grand Mosalla religious complex in Tehran for the funeral ceremonies of Khamenei and four family members killed on February 28 in Israeli airstrikes based on U.S. intelligence.
As well as laying to rest the man who ruled the Islamic republic for over three-and-a-half decades, the funerals are a chance for the authorities to burnish their resilience after five weeks at war with Israel and the U.S., which the theocratic system, in place since 1979, survived despite the loss of key figures.
Parliament speaker and chief negotiator with the U.S. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of the most prominent faces of the post-Ali Khamenei era, hailed on X how the "proud and invincible nation of Islamic Iran unanimously" paid tribute to its "martyr".
