The body of the martyred Leader was taken to the shrine of Imam Ali (AS) on Wednesday noon after a grand public funeral procession through Najaf, with huge crowds of Iraqi mourners attending the ceremony.

The official funeral procession began at 6 am local time on Wednesday amid the presence of large numbers of people in the holy city and will continue toward Karbala, where another major farewell ceremony will be held.

According to Tasnim’s correspondent in Najaf, the massive turnout caused the vehicle carrying the body of the martyred Leader to move at an extremely slow pace. A route of around three kilometers, which accounted for half of the planned procession path, took nearly four hours to complete due to the overwhelming presence of mourners.

A dedicated route had been prepared for the vehicle carrying the body, but large crowds continued to move toward the shrine of Imam Ali (AS) to take part in the historic ceremony.

Iraqi mourners carried the flags of Iraq, Iran, and Hezbollah, along with black mourning banners and red flags symbolizing the call for revenge and justice for the martyred Leader.

The funeral ceremonies began on Tuesday night with an official reception for the body of Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei at Najaf International Airport, where senior Iranian and Iraqi officials paid tribute before the public farewell.

Many Iraqi citizens described hosting the funeral ceremonies as a great honor, saying the farewell reflects the deep religious and historical ties between the Iraqi and Iranian peoples.

The funeral in Iraq follows large-scale farewell ceremonies in Tehran and Qom, where millions of Iranians paid their final respects to the martyred Leader. Following the ceremonies in Najaf and Karbala, Ayatollah Khamenei’s body will return to Iran for the final funeral procession and burial at the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS) in Mashhad.

Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei was martyred in a joint US-Israeli strike on Tehran on February 28, 2026, at the start of a 40-day war of aggression against Iran. His martyrdom sparked widespread mourning across Iran and among supporters of the Resistance in the region, with mourners carrying red flags as a symbol of their demand for justice and retribution.