Senior IRGC figure seen publicly at funeral of Iran’s supreme leader

Ahmad Vahidi, a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has made his first public appearance in several months, attending a funeral ceremony for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, according to Iranian media.

Reports said Vahidi took part in a meeting to organise funeral arrangements and was later seen standing beside Khamenei’s coffin during a memorial service.

Khamenei, 86, was killed on February 28 alongside several family members in a joint US-Israeli air strike on his compound, on the first day of the war.

The burial, originally scheduled for March, was postponed as the conflict between Iran and US-Israeli forces continued.

Khamenei had led Iran since 1989, succeeding Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the country’s first supreme leader.

While Khomeini is widely regarded as the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the rule of the Pahlavi monarchy, Khamenei played a central role in shaping Iran’s military and paramilitary structures during his tenure.

The funeral is set to be the first major state ceremony under his successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, his son, who has remained out of public view since the start of the war four months ago.

A seven-day funeral programme is planned across Iran and Iraq, with global leaders, senior officials, religious figures and scholars expected to pay their respects.

By Tamilla Hasanova