RABAT, July 9. /TASS/. The funeral ceremony for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that was originally scheduled to begin in the Iranian city of Mashhad in the early hours on July 9 has been postponed until the evening of the same day due continuing mourning ceremonies in neighboring Iraq, the funeral committee said.
"Due to the mass and solemn farewell ceremonies for the late Leader Ali Khamenei that took place in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, the arrival of Khamenei's coffin in Mashhad has been postponed," it said, as cited by the Baghdad Today news portal. "The ceremony [in Mashhad] will take place at 2:00 p.m. local time (11:00 a.m. GMT) on Thursday."
According to the committee, the funeral procession with the late leader’s coffin will start from Mashhad’s main street toward the Imam Reza Shrine, where Ali Khamenei will be buried.
According to earlier reports, the farewell ceremony for Ali Khamenei in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala took longer than planned as crowds of people took to the streets to take part in the in it. According to the command of the Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces (Al-Hashd al-Shaabi), which is helping maintain order during the mourning events, more than four million people took part in the farewell ceremonies in Karbala.
