PREVIEW

Mourners take part in the funeral procession for Iran's late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the Imam Hussein Shrine in Karbala early on July 9, 2026. Iranians were preparing on July 9 to bury their slain leader Ali Khamenei in his hometown of Mashhad in northeast Iran, as new US strikes threatened to trigger a fresh escalation in the Middle East war. The late leader's burial follows a multi-day funeral ceremony that attracted millions of mourners across various cities in both Iran and Iraq.