Iran Turns Funeral Into Message for World --- Mourning Khamenei, Tehran threatens Trump and trolls Turkey, Saudi Arabia

 

“A crowd of mourners joined the funeral procession Monday for the body of Ali Khamenei, one of the biggest moments in a week of events that were part eulogy for the former supreme leader killed at the start of the Iran war and part of an elaborately managed exercise in political messaging to the country's allies and enemies.

 

Iranian authorities say 11 million people took public transportation to attend the memorial that began on Saturday to honor Khamenei, who was killed with several relatives in the first wave of Israeli and U.S. airstrikes on Tehran more than four months ago.

 

Participants pelted a picture of President Trump with stones, while others held a banner that said: "We will kill Trump" in Farsi and English, according to footage circulated on Iranian state media.

 

Iran's new leaders got the multiday event off to an argumentative start. Foreign delegations were greeted with what appeared to be targeted verses from the Quran as they arrived Friday to pay homage to the slain leader, whose body lay in state at Tehran's Grand Mosalla.

 

The Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which joined in the war by attacking Israel, was greeted with a verse framing military setbacks as part of a divine cycle in which God chooses martyrs and reveals the faithful. A delegation from the Palestinian militia Hamas received a verse praising believers "who have remained true to the covenant they made with God." Iran's backing helped Hamas build up its forces before launching the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off three years of war.

 

The delegation from Saudi Arabia, which hosts U.S. bases and hit Iranian targets during the war, got a different message. The Iranians picked a quote referring to the Battle of Badr, in which the Prophet Muhammad's followers defeated a much larger force through what was interpreted as a divine intervention. "There has already been a sign for you in the two armies that met," the verse said. "One was fighting in the cause of Allah and the other of disbelievers."

 

Tehran also scolded the Turkish delegation for Ankara's neutrality during the war: "Believers who stay at home," their verse said, "are not equal to those who strive in the cause of Allah."

 

"Iran's leaders used the Quran," said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at London's Chatham House think tank, "as strategic signaling, reading verses of perseverance for its resistance partners and implicit warnings for regional competitors like Saudi Arabia and Turkey."

 

On Monday, Iranian television broadcast mourners walking alongside Khamenei's coffin and those of several slain relatives. They flew Iranian flags and banners that called for vengeance for the supreme leader's death. "We don't forgive or forget," one placard said.

 

"The processions are meant to confer renewed legitimacy on Khamenei's worldview and show that a large constituency in Iran remains mobilized behind it," said Sina Toossi, an Iran-focused fellow at the Center for International Policy. "Iran is signaling that it will not back down."” [1]

 

1. World News: Iran Turns Funeral Into Message for World --- Mourning Khamenei, Tehran threatens Trump and trolls Turkey, Saudi Arabia. al-Batati, Saleh; Faucon, Benoit.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 07 July 2026: A7.