Mourners take to Tehran streets but supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei does not attend traditional prayers
\n Tehran
\nIran held a funeral procession for top military commanders and scientists who were killed in this month\u2019s Israeli air strikes, in a public show of defiance against the US and Israel.
\nHundreds of thousands of mourners took to the streets of Tehran on Saturday, vowing that the Islamic republic would stand firm in the face of aggression.
\nThe crowd marched from Enghelab Square behind vehicles carrying the caskets of 60 people who were killed in the 12 days of Israeli bombardment, including military figures, nuclear scientists and media workers, as well as women and children.
\nBanners with pictures of those who died lined the route and the government declared Saturday a public holiday to mark the occasion. The mourners chanted \u201cneither compromise, nor surrender, fight against the US\u201d and trampled on US and Israeli flags.
\nAfter the procession some of the bodies will be buried in Tehran\u2019s main cemetery or at two religious shrines, while others will be transported to their hometowns for burial.
\nOfficials including Iran\u2019s President Masoud Pezeshkian, foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and Esmail Ghaani, leader of the elite Revolutionary Guards\u2019 overseas Quds Forces, attended.
\nAlso present was Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Iran\u2019s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was badly wounded in the strikes and leaned on a stick.
\nBut in a break from tradition, Khamenei himself did not make an appearance for the funeral prayers. For decades he has led funeral prayers to mark the deaths of top military and political figures, including Qasem Soleimani, the Guards\u2019 top overseas commander who was killed in a US air strike in 2020, and former president Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash last year.
\nKhamenei has not appeared in public since June 13, when Israel launched the offensive on Iran, but since then he has addressed the Iranian people in three pre-recorded video messages.
\nOn Thursday in his first comments since the ceasefire took hold, Khamenei claimed \u201cvictory\u201d over Israel and the US and said Donald Trump had \u201cexaggerated\u201d the effect of US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
\nThere have been conflicting reports about the extent of damage to Iran\u2019s nuclear capacity following the US bombardments of the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan sites.
\nA US damage assessment said the attacks had set back Iran\u2019s nuclear programme by months, after Trump\u2019s claims of \u201cobliteration\u201d of Iranian nuclear installations. European intelligence indicated Iran\u2019s highly enriched uranium stockpile had been distributed to several other locations before the strikes.
\nOn Friday, Trump said he would \u201cwithout question\u201d consider a new strike on Iran\u2019s nuclear sites if Tehran maintained its capability for high-level uranium enrichment.
\nTrump also hit back at Khamenei\u2019s comments and said he had prevented Israel from assassinating the Iranian leader.
\nAraghchi called on Trump to \u201cput aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone\u201d towards Khamenei and \u201cstop hurting his millions of heartfelt followers\u201d if he was \u201cgenuine\u201d about a deal.
\nIran\u2019s permanent mission to the UN said the US and Israel\u2019s \u201copen threat to assassinate\u201d Khamenei constituted \u201ca manifest instance of state terrorism\u201d.
\nIran\u2019s health ministry has put the death toll from the Israeli military assault at 627, with nearly 4,900 injured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mourners take to Tehran streets but supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei does not attend traditional prayers Tehran Iran held a funeral procession for top military commanders and scientists who were killed in this month\u2019s Israeli air strikes, in a public show of defiance against the US and Israel. Hundreds of thousands of mourners took to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-487216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n