NJaf’s narrow streets swelled with mourners as the coffin of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, entered the holy Iraqi city—an unmistakable show of grief and political choreography in a place revered as home to Shia Islam’s most sacred shrines.
Iran launched six days of public funeral ceremonies for Khamenei on Saturday, setting aside one full day for neighbouring Iraq, a country bound to Tehran by years of close ties.
Officials in the Islamic republic want the ceremonies to broadcast strength and solidarity in the wake of the Middle East war, which began when US-Israeli strikes killed Khamenei and several relatives on 28 February.
Following a huge procession in Iran’s holy city of Qom, Iraqi officials and senior politicians received Khamenei’s remains last night at Najaf international airport, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attending the arrival.
People carry Ali Khamenei’s coffin after landing at Najaf International Airport
Iraqi authorities declared today a public holiday
Organisers expected vast crowds in both Najaf and Karbala. Along the routes, oversized portraits of the late leader appeared beside Iranian flags and images of other slain commanders from Iran’s “axis of resistance”.
Khamenei’s final burial is scheduled for tomorrow in Mashhad, his hometown in northeast Iran.
In Najaf, mourners will take part in a 6km procession that will end at the imposing shrine of Imam Ali—Prophet Muhammed’s son-in-law and the first Shia Imam.
Najaf also serves as the beating heart of Shia religious seminaries and is home to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s most senior Shia religious authority.
Over decades, the city has drawn senior Shia clerics from across the region to study, teach and live there, among them Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khamenei’s predecessor.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi attend the welcome ceremony at Najaf International Airport
For many Shia Muslims worldwide, Najaf carries such spiritual weight that they seek to be buried there.
After Najaf, Khamenei’s body will be flown to Karbala—about 60km north—for another procession, culminating at the shrines of Imam Hussein and his brother Abbas.
The seventh-century death of Hussein, the third Shia Imam, remains a defining chapter in Shia history, and it continues to draw millions of pilgrims from around the world to Karbala and Najaf each year.
In both cities, the procession routes were lined with hundreds of volunteer-run stalls, handing out food and drinks to mourners as crowds passed.
‘Spiritual bond’
The relationship between Iraq and Iran—both Shia-majority nations—runs deep, shaped by faith as much as by power and proximity.
Iranian state media quoted Esmail Qaani, the head of the Quds Force in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, as saying: “The extensive planning for this historical event by the Iraqi government and people show the depth of the spiritual bond between the two great nations of Iraq and Iran to the whole world.”
Yet that closeness is not a constant in modern history. In the 1980s, Iraq’s late ruler Saddam Hussein—who repressed the country’s Shia population—waged war against the Islamic republic.
Since Hussein’s fall in 2003, in a US-led invasion, the two countries have moved steadily into alignment, alongside the rise of Shia-dominated governments in Baghdad.
Today, Iran supports influential politicians as well as armed groups, some of which entered the Middle East war after Khamenei’s death to back Iran, including attacks on US facilities in Iraq.
Read more:Huge crowds fill Tehran for Khamenei funeral processionUS military launch series of ‘powerful’ strikes on Iran
