'Kill Trump': Fury Erupts as Iran's Biggest Crowd Yet Turns Out for Khamenei's Funeral

Enormous crowds filled the streets of central Tehran on Monday for the funeral procession of slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the largest gathering yet in a week of mourning ceremonies that has underlined the grip of Iran's surviving clerical leadership.

The procession was marked by visible anger towards the United States and Israel. As the cortege passed under a bridge, mourners threw stones at a billboard depicting President Donald Trump with a bullet aimed at his head, Reuters reported.

Women in black chadors held placards with the words "Kill Trump" in English, while other demonstrators burned American and British flags and raised posters showing Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu each depicted in the crosshairs of a gunsight alongside the words "There will be blood." Larger sections of the crowd waved Iranian flags and red banners calling for the avenging of Khamenei's death, as per the news agency, a phrase drawn from one of Shia Islam's most resonant historical references.

Successor yet to appear in public

Three of Khamenei's sons prayed beside his casket at a Tehran prayer hall on Sunday. However, Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father as supreme leader, has not been seen in public since the war began on February 28 with Israeli and US airstrikes. He is believed to have sustained disfiguring wounds in the attack that killed his father.

The mourning ceremonies began on Friday when the caskets were laid in state for officials and foreign dignitaries, with further large outdoor ceremonies on Saturday and Sunday preceding Monday's procession. The body is expected to be taken to the seminary city of Qom and two Shia shrine cities in Iraq before returning to Iran for burial in a medieval shrine complex in Mashhad.

Khamenei was killed in the February strikes that triggered the conflict, which formally ended last month under a preliminary peace agreement leaving Iran's clerical government in place and claiming a measure of victory through its control over the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has also declared victory, though several of the goals he stated at the outset of the conflict, including dismantling Iran's nuclear and missile programmes and ending its regional influence, remain unmet. He said at the weekend that peace negotiations had been delayed by a week owing to the funeral proceedings.