Thousands of Iranians took part in a procession on Monday as part of the funeral of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and throngs of mourners called for the killing of U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Such signs were seen again along the procession’s route, along with at least one effigy of Trump being hanged.

“We are here to show that his path will continue, and every single one of these people will continue down his path with clenched fists, and soon we will certainly avenge his death against the U.S and Israel,” said mourner Sahar Zaraatgar.

 

 

Mourners took part in a symbolic ceremony called “Stoning of the Devil,” in which they threw small stones at Trump’s portrait.

U.S. federal authorities have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and other administration officials for years, stemming from Trump’s ordering the 2020 killing of Soleimani, who led the elite Quds Force.

Khamenei’s flag-draped coffin, and those of members of his family killed Feb. 28 in an airstrike at the start of the war launched by Israel and the United States, sat on board a truck decorated to resemble the ornamental grating that surrounds the shrine of an imam. The calls to kill Trump took place as Tehran negotiates with the U.S. over a permanent end to the war that killed the 86-year-old cleric.

Helicopter images aired on Iranian state television showed a crowd stretching from Tehran’s Azadi, or Freedom, Square for kilometers (miles) down a multilane street of the same name. Authorities offered no immediate crowd count as the truck crept down the street. But people alongside the truck and elsewhere on the route carried placards, signs and banners calling for Trump’s death

The coffins will be taken through the streets of Tehran on a 12-hour journey to Mehrabad International Airport, said Revolutionary Guard Gen. Hasan Hasanzadeh, who is overseeing the procession.

Authorities have shut down streets, airspace and daily life for the mourning, which began Saturday and will end Thursday as Khamenei is buried at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his birthplace.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem & AP)