Funeral for slain Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei set for July, as deal to end war nears

Iran’s state-run news agency said on Saturday (June 13, 2026) funeral processions for its former Supreme Leader Ali ​Khamenei would be held in July, as mediators say an agreement to end the war is close.

The funeral, burial, and farewell ceremonies for Khamenei would take place between July 4 and 9, Iran’s state-run television, IRIB, reported.

West Asia war updates on June 13, 2026

Khamenei was killed in the opening salvo of the war that Israel and the United States launched against Iran in late February. He has since been replaced by his son, Mojtaba, who is seen as even less compromising.

Khamenei to be buried at the holiest of Shia shrines

Funeral ceremonies for Khamenei are expected to begin in Tehran, and the procession will move to Qom, a stronghold of many senior Shia clerics, and then to Mashhad, his birthplace, where he’ll be buried at the Imam Reza Shrine, considered the holiest place among Shia devotees.

Funerals for Khamenei’s daughter and son-in-law, killed in the February strike, will also be held on the same day.

Khamenei dramatically remoulded the Islamic Republic since he took the reins after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. Khomeini was the fiery, charismatic ideologue who led the overthrow of the Shah and installed rule by Shia Muslim clerics tasked with spreading religious purity.

He ended up ruling far longer than Khomeini. He greatly expanded the Shia clerical class and built the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard into the most important body underpinning his rule. The Guard became a military and business behemoth, the country’s most elite force and head of its ballistic missile arsenal, with hands across Iran’s economic sectors