TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Mourners dressed in black flooded into Iran's capital Monday for a procession as part of the funeral of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with throngs of people calling for the death of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Khamenei's flag-draped coffin, and those of his family members who were killed Feb. 28 in an airstrike at the start of the war launched by Israel and the United States, sat aboard a truck decorated to resemble the ornamental grating that surrounds the shrine of an imam. The massive turnout was encouraged by Iran's theocracy as a sign of strength, and it came as the Islamic Republic negotiates with the U.S. over a permanent end to the war.
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Helicopter images aired on Iranian state television showed a massive crowd stretching from Tehran's Azadi, or Freedom, Square for kilometers (miles) down a multilane street of the same name. The crowd appeared to be larger than the one that turned out for the 2020 procession for the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, which drew over 1 million people.
Authorities offered no immediate crowd count as the truck crept down the street. People alongside the truck and elsewhere on the route carried placards, signs and banners calling for Trump's death.
