Khamenei Funeral Begins in Tehran. Millions Expected Saturday as Iran Warns U.S. and Israel Against Any Strike.

Since the Israeli airstrike that killed Ali Khamenei on February 28 and the succession of Mojtaba Khamenei as Supreme Leader in March, Tehran has been building toward a state funeral on a scale the Islamic Republic has not staged since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's burial in 1989.

The first formal phase of the ceremonies began Friday morning when Khamenei's flag-draped casket, along with the remains of family members killed in the same February 28 strike, was moved to the Grand Mosalla mosque in Tehran, according to Iran's state Islamic Republic News Agency. Those being honored alongside Khamenei include his eldest daughter, a son-in-law, a 14-month-old granddaughter, and the wife of current Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has remained in hiding after reportedly being wounded in the attack.

Iran's civilian leadership turned out in full. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and President Masoud Pezeshkian all paid their respects at the casket Friday, as reported by the Associated Press via NPR. A military band played while mourners filed past.

Who Showed Up

Delegations from around 30 countries are in Tehran for the ceremonies, according to EuroNews coverage cited by Breitbart. The guest list reflects Iran's current geopolitical alignment with precision.

Russia is sending former President and current Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev as Vladimir Putin's special envoy. China sent the vice chair of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili, and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon are attending as heads of government. Afghanistan's Taliban government sent acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, with reports that Prime Minister Hassan Akhund and National Resistance Front leader Ahmad Massoud may also appear.

Iraq's delegation is among the most prominent: President Nizar Amidi, parliamentary speaker Haibet al-Halboosi, and Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani all made the trip.

No European heads of state were invited. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said European leaders were excluded because of their "shameful" support for U.S. and Israeli military action. Breitbart noted the irony that Iran had itself attacked some of the countries now receiving invitations during March and April operations. That tension is real, and it cuts against Iran's framing of the event as a purely defensive gathering.

The Military Warning

Iranian military commander Ali Abdollahi issued a public statement Thursday, carried by Iranian state media: "We warn the enemies of Iran, especially the U.S. and the Zionist regime, to avoid any miscalculation and to think about the harsh retaliation our armed forces would make to any threat and aggression against our country."

The warning is notable partly because of what else happened Friday: a powerful general leading Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps appeared publicly for the first time in months to participate in the funeral proceedings, according to the AP. His reemergence, after an extended period out of public view, signals the IRGC is positioning itself as intact and operational heading into what Iran hopes are ceasefire negotiations.

What Iran Wants the World to See

Tehran is managing simultaneous vulnerabilities. Its new Supreme Leader is in hiding. Its military took serious damage. Its economy was already under sanctions before the war. A massive public funeral, broadcast internationally and attended by heads of state, is one of the few tools Iran can deploy right now without firing a shot. Dismissing the event as pure theater misses that it has real strategic function.

The counterpoint is also real. Iran's government is staging this as a show of institutional continuity while the man who nominally leads the country cannot appear in public. Mourner Mohammad Hossein Rezaei told the AP that Iran would continue its "no to humiliation" policy, but that policy, carried out under the old Khamenei, produced a war that killed the Supreme Leader, his family, and thousands of Iranians.

What Comes Next

Khamenei's body is scheduled to lie in state through Monday, when it will be carried in a funeral procession through Tehran. After that, further rites are planned in the holy city of Qom, then in Baghdad, Karbala, and Najaf in Iraq, before burial.

The routing of the procession through Iraq is diplomatically loaded. Iraq's top leaders are already in Tehran, and the Karbala and Najaf stops carry enormous Shia religious weight. A reminder that Iran's influence in Iraq did not evaporate with Khamenei's death.

The open question heading into Saturday's mass procession is whether the turnout will match the 1989 precedent Iran is explicitly invoking. That comparison is deliberate: in 1989, millions in the streets helped legitimize the post-Khomeini transition. Iran's government needs the same signal now, in the middle of ongoing ceasefire talks with Washington over permanent terms to end the war.