The funeral for Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei has entered a second day, but Mojtaba Khamenei, chosen as successor, has yet to appear in public.
According to AFP and other foreign media on the 5th (local time), at the funeral prayer held in Tehran for former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, three of Khamenei's other sons—Mostafa, Masoud and Meysam—were present, but the second son Mojtaba, who succeeded to the supreme leadership, did not appear.
Mojtaba was reported to have injured his face and suffered severe leg wounds in U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28. Since then, he has not attended any public events, and after being elected supreme leader, he has only released a written statement.
The funeral both commemorates Khamenei, who ruled Iran for more than 35 years, and is meant to showcase the regime's resilience and unity at home and abroad after five weeks of war against Israel and the United States.
However, with the new supreme leader failing to make an appearance, some mourners voiced disappointment. One attendee told Iran's Tasnim news agency, "I hoped until just before the prayer began that Mojtaba would come out in person. That was our only wish."
Calls for retaliation against the United States and Israel also continued at the funeral venue. Poet Mohammad Rasouli said in a poetry recitation held just before the farewell prayer, "The world is no longer a good place for Trump," and added, "Why should we not kill the person who killed our imam (supreme leader)? If we do not, that would be a disgrace."
The funeral schedule runs through the 9th. On the 6th, a funeral procession will take place in downtown Tehran, and on the 7th, a funeral service attended by senior Shiite clerics will be held in Qom, a religious city in central Iran. Then on the 8th, the body will be transported to the Shiite holy sites of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq for funeral rites, before burial on the 9th in Mashhad in northeastern Iran, Khamenei's hometown and a Shiite holy site.