Iran holds state funeral for Ali Khamenei

Iranian officials and foreign delegates pay their final tribute to the country's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a funeral ceremony in central Tehran on Friday.

The ceremony at Imam Khomeini's Mosalla prayer hall took place months after an airstrike killed 86-year-old Khamenei at the start of the Iran war.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, and other senior officials were present.

Hundreds of thousands of people reportedly travelled from across the country to fill the streets of Tehran. When the casket containing the late leader's body was unveiled in a glass case, some mourners burst into tears and chanted: "Our word is one! Revenge! Revenge!"

Bassam Hatoum from The Associated Press says: "The casket containing the body draped with Iranian flag is displayed at the Tehran's Grand Mosalla Mosque, together with the coffins of some of his family members killed on Feb. 28 when the U.S. and Israel jointly launched the war on Iran."

Among the foreign guests were Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Iraqi President Nizar Amedi, and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon.

The days-long ceremonies will last through July 9th with processions in Tehran, Qom, and Mashhad, as well as rites in Iraq.

Iranian authorities have annouced public closures and airspace restrictions in the capital city and Mashhad on key dates.

Khamenei's body will return to Iran for the final burial in Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, Khamenei's place of birth, on Thursday, which is declared as a day of national mourning.

At the funeral went on, President Donald Trump said in South Dakota in front of Mount Rushmore that he takes pride in the performance of the United States about its actions against Venezuela and Iran.

He says: "We beat Venezuela in one day and we knocked the hell out of Iran. They're dying to settle. They want to settle so badly. We gave him a week off for a funeral because we are nice, it's true."