Iran holds a funeral for President Raisi and others killed in a helicopter crash

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader led the funeral Wednesday of the country’s late president, foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash, while tens of thousands later followed a procession of their coffins through the capital Tehran.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held the service at Tehran University, the coffins of the dead were draped in Iranian flags with their images. A black turban lay on the coffin of the late President Ebrahim Raisi – a sign that he was a direct descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

“Oh Allah, we have seen nothing but good from him,” Khamenei said in the standard prayer for the dead in Arabic, the language of Islam’s holy book, the Koran. He soon left and the crowd inside rushed forward and reached out to touch the coffins. Iran’s incumbent President Mohammad Mokhber stood nearby and wept openly during the service.

People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders and chanted “Death to America!” outside. They loaded them onto a semi-trailer and took them in a procession through downtown Tehran to Azadi Square, the “Freedom Square,” where Raisi had given speeches in the past. People threw up scarves and other items so that the guards on the truck could touch the coffins and give them their blessing.

Present were top leaders of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, one of the country’s largest power centers. Also present was Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, the militant group that Iran has armed and supported during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Before the funeral, Haniyeh spoke and a moderator led the crowd in chanting: “Death to Israel!”

“I come on behalf of the Palestinian people, on behalf of the Gaza resistance groups… to express our condolences,” Haniyeh told those gathered.

He also recounted a meeting with Raisi in Tehran during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, and heard the president say that the Palestinian issue remains the central issue of the Muslim world.

The Muslim world “must fulfill its obligations to the Palestinians to liberate their land,” Haniyeh said, recalling Raisi’s words. He also described Raisi as calling the October 7 attack that sparked the war, in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 others taken hostage, “an earthquake in the heart of Zionist unity.” Since then, 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and hundreds more in the West Bank in Israeli operations as part of the war.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and a delegation from the Afghan Taliban, including their Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mutaqqi, were also expected to attend the services in Tehran. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also flew in for the ceremony.

Even Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry traveled to Tehran, even though diplomatic relations between the countries were severed after the 1979 revolution. Egypt and Iran have recently discussed restoring relations.

Notably, however, other than Khamenei, none of Iran’s living presidents appeared in the state television prayer footage. They include the reformist Mohammad Khatami, the hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the relatively moderate Hassan Rouhani – all figures who maintain a certain political standing within Iran’s tightly controlled political system.

Authorities gave no explanation for their absence from the event, which took place weeks before the scheduled June 28 presidential election. There is currently no clear favorite for the office among Iran’s political elite – especially someone who is a Shiite cleric like Raisi.

Iran’s theocracy declared five days of mourning over the crash on Sunday and encouraged people to attend public mourning sessions. Typically, government employees and school children attend such events en masse, while others attend out of patriotism, curiosity or to witness historical events.

For Iran’s Shiite theocracy, mass demonstrations have been crucial to demonstrating the legitimacy of its leadership since millions of people streamed through the streets of Tehran to greet Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and also attended his funeral 10 years later .

A An estimated 1 million came in 2020 for processions for the deceased Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad. At that ceremony, Khamenei openly wept over Soleimani’s coffin alongside Raisi. On Wednesday, Khamenei appeared composed, although he later hugged the dead’s family members on his way out.

If Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and others drawing the same crowd remains questionable, especially since Raisi died in a helicopter crash, won office in the presidential election with the lowest voter turnout in the country’s history, and was responsible for a sweeping crackdown on all dissent.

Prosecutors have already warned people against displaying public signs celebrating his death, and there has been a heavy presence of security forces on the streets of Tehran since the crash.

The 63-year-old Raisi was discussed as a possible successor to Iran’s supreme leader. the 85-year-old KhameneiThe only other person suggested was Khamenei’s 55-year-old son, Mojtaba, but concerns have been raised about whether the position would go to a family member, especially after the revolution overthrew the Shah’s hereditary Pahlavi monarchy.

Meanwhile, an Iranian official presented a new account of Sunday’s crash, further fueling the theory that bad weather caused it. Gholamhossein Esmaili, who was travelling in one of the other two helicopters in Raisi’s entourage, told state television that the weather was fine when the plane took off. But Raisi’s helicopter disappeared into thick clouds and the others could not reach the plane by radio, forcing them to land in a nearby copper mine.

Neither Amirabdollahian nor a bodyguard on board responded to calls, but Tabriz Friday preacher Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem somehow answered two cellphone calls, Esmaili said. It was unclear why Iran could not then track the phone’s signal.

“When we found the scene of the accident, the condition of the bodies indicated that Ayatollah Raisi and other companions died immediately, but Ale-Hashem… (died) after several hours,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Joseph Krauss in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Samy Magdy in Cairo; and Munir Ahmed and Riazat Butt in Islamabad contributed to this report.