•Late Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Iran’s slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be buried in the holy city of Mashhad, the Fars news agency said yesterday.
Khamenei, who led the country for 36 years, was killed at 86 during a wave of US-Israeli attacks on Saturday.
He was originally from Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, where his father is buried at the Imam Reza shrine.
Before the burial, a “large farewell ceremony” will be held in Tehran, the Revolutionary Guards said on their Telegram account.
No date for the burial was disclosed.
After Khamenei’s death, power was entrusted to a three-man interim council until the Assembly of Experts elects his successor.
It includes the president, the head of the judiciary and a jurist from the Guardian Council, the body that oversees legislation and vets electoral candidates.
Fars, citing an official familiar with the process, reported that “for security reasons”, the assembly’s final meeting could be postponed until after Khamenei’s burial.
Iranian media said the building housing the 88-member body in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, was hit yesterday by US-Israeli strikes.
Its main headquarters in the Iranian capital was also struck the day before.
