The six-day funeral for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei began in Tehran and ended in Mashhad, where he was born and where he was buried, with ceremonies, too, in Qom, and in Iraq, in the cities of Karbala and Najaf. The Iranian regime now claims that in those five cities at least forty-three million people joined the crowds of mourners. This is a preposterous figure, off by an order of magnitude. More on where many Iranians went during the funeral can be found here: “The Funeral the Cameras Missed: How Iranians Really Marked Khamenei’s Death,” by Maddie Ali, Algemeiner, July 8, 2026:
The world watched Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral from above. Aerial shots of packed Tehran streets, interviews with weeping loyalists, breathless dispatches from Western social media influencers — this was the story beamed around the globe. But the real story of the late Iranian supreme leader’s send-off was unfolding just outside the frame, in the tens of millions of Iranians who simply weren’t there.
Press outlets around the world reported this week that millions attended the funeral, a figure that has never been independently verified. Echoing Iran’s state media, they presented the vast crowds as a nationwide outpouring of grief and loyalty. The more revealing question, though, is not how many filled the streets — it is how many did not, and why.
Tehran itself supplied the answer. As the mourning rituals got underway, the roads leading out of the capital clogged with traffic, not into it. Residents fled the disruptions and the atmosphere of the official ceremonies in droves, and few bothered to disguise their reasons.
“It is a holiday, and we are happy to leave Tehran and the funeral of a dictator behind and have fun for a while,” Sahar, a university lecturer who requested that only her first name be used, told The Algemeiner.
Hassan, a university student who also asked to be identified only by his first name, was equally unsentimental.
“This ceremony is ridiculous,” he said. “I don’t want to be part of it or even be near it.”
Javid, an engineer, put it most bluntly.
“Why would I mourn a dictator?” he asked. “I am glad it’s over for him.”
The scenes on social media told the same story. Iranians posted selfies and videos of their escape from the capital — bound not for the mourning processions but for the mountain resorts to the north and the coastal villages along the Caspian Sea. On Saturday, lavish Caspian hotels were posting photos of tree-lined streets teeming with cars and revelers. While state television broadcast grief, a sizable portion of the country was, quite openly, on vacation.
Tens of thousands of Iranians left Tehran to avoid having to endure the spectacle of the funeral for the supreme leader, a man they rightly hated. They took advantage of the national holiday declared as part of the funeral observance to leave for the countryside and the Caspian sea resorts. They were free with expressions of disgust at the supreme leader and his regime.
In just two days, January 18 and 19, the regime murdered at least 40,000 of its own citizens who had dared to come out to protest against the regime.
The government summoned many of the mourners to join the crowd of mourners were not Iranians at all, but Shia Muslims from abroad who were in the country to study in its seminaries — in other words, people deeply committed, even fanatically so, to their faith.
The regime used AI-generated aerial photographs to support its claim that “five million” people had joined the mourners in Tehran. Westerners doing their own estimates from their satellite photos put the numbers in Tehran at “several hundred thousand.”
The Iranian media paid attention only to the “city of mourners,” whose size was greatly exaggerated, and many of whose participants — the Iranian students forcibly bused-in, the foreign students and Shia pilgrims — were never discussed. That other city, consisting of people leaving Tehran to avoid the mourning for a man they detested, was never mentioned in the official media.
Iran has a population of 90 million. Of that number, at least 85%, or 76.5 million, are believed to be adamantly opposed to the regime. This figure is based on foreign researchers and pollsters who take opinion polls in Iran using randomized telephone-based surveys, encrypted digital web-based polling, and occasionally in-person interviews.
These 76.5 million Iranians were the people who did not participate in the funeral. They either stayed at home, in Tehran, or they left the city altogether for the Caspian coast. The real story of the funeral is not how many people attended, but how many people stayed away. Iran now claims that 43 million people attended the funeral in five cities. Foreign estimates do not exceed four million. Whom should you believe? The people who have no reason to lie.
Westman says
“Westerners doing their own estimates from their satellite photos put the numbers in Tehran at “several hundred thousand.”
This is a problem if the satellite pictures are not published. The Regime can say, “Where is the evidence”, and their own faked images can’t be debunked through comparison. Essentially these claims, without the proof of a low turnout, are in the same realm as, “He said, she said”, politics.
The most important reason the satellite images should be published is so disaffected Iranians could truly know the strength of the anti-Regime sentiment in major cities. If it is actually anywhere near 85% they need to believe it as a provable number to re-generate a willingness again for tossing out the Regime. Iranians can count, including counting those who already died by the hands of evil men.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
One thing that struck me was how the funeral was spread over 6 cities. I was surprised to learn that, and therefore had a Q&A session w/ Leo AI, the AI agent of the Brave web browser, to clarify some questions I had. My questions in quotes, and Leo AI’s responses in italics
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is being buried in Mashhad, Iran, not in Iraq. His body is being flown to Najaf, Iraq, as part of a six-day funeral procession that includes stops at the holiest sites in Shia Islam before his final interment in Iran
Here are the specific details of the plan:
⬩ Final Burial Location: Khamenei will be laid to rest in Mashhad, his birthplace and Iran’s holiest city, specifically at the shrine of Imam Reza. This is where his father is also buried
⬩ The Iraq Stopover: The body is being transported to Najaf and Karbala in Iraq on July 8 as a crucial part of the ceremony. These cities house the shrines of Imam Ali and Imam Hussein, the two most sacred sites in Shia Islam. Visiting these shrines is a traditional and highly significant ritual for high-ranking Shia clerics, symbolizing a connection to the faith’s history and the wider Shia world
⬩ The Route: The funeral procession began in Tehran (July 4–5), moved to Qom (July 7), then to Najaf and Karbala (July 8), and concludes with the burial in Mashhad on July 9
The delay in the funeral (nearly four months after his death in February 2026 following the U.S.-Israel war) and the elaborate route are intended to demonstrate regime continuity, unity, and the enduring strength of the Islamic Republic despite the loss of its leader
The grandiose funeral for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is being funded primarily by a sudden, temporary windfall from oil exports following a specific diplomatic breakthrough, rather than from the regime’s strained regular budget.
Here is how the financing is working despite reported struggles with IRGC salaries:
1. The “General License X” Oil Windfall Just weeks before the funeral, the U.S. issued a 60-day waiver on Iranian oil sanctions (known as “General License X”) as part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in June 2026
This waiver allowed Iran to:
⬩ Export crude oil and petrochemicals in U.S. dollars for the first time in decades.
⬩ Access previously frozen assets and clear shipping routes.
⬩ Unlock an estimated $8 billion to $9 billion in revenue from a floating inventory of 67 million barrels of crude stranded in the Gulf
This influx of cash provided the regime with a massive, albeit temporary, liquidity boost specifically timed to fund the funeral and stabilize the economy during the ceasefire negotiations
2. Prioritization of Political Legitimacy The regime views the funeral as a critical political survival event. In the wake of Khamenei’s death and the war, the leadership needs to project an image of unity, strength, and continuity to prevent internal collapse or further unrest.
⬩ The funeral is described as a “tightly choreographed display of mourning, continuity and regime control”
⬩ Authorities are willing to divert funds from other sectors (like routine military payroll) to ensure the event’s success, as a failure to stage a massive funeral could be interpreted as a sign of weakness or regime fragility
3. The IRGC Salary Context Reports of IRGC personnel not being paid are often related to delays or partial payments due to the long-term economic blockade, rather than a total lack of funds
However, the regime likely prioritizes:
⬩ Security Forces: Ensuring the IRGC and Basij are paid enough to maintain order during the massive, high-risk funeral gatherings
⬩ The Funeral Itself: The event is a direct investment in the regime’s legitimacy, whereas salary arrears are a chronic, manageable (though dangerous) issue. The oil windfall likely allowed the state to clear some backlogs to ensure the troops’ loyalty during the ceremony
4. Cost-Sharing and In-Kind Contributions The sheer scale of the event also relies on non-cash resources:
⬩ State Infrastructure: The government is using state-owned hotels, schools, and sports halls to house millions of mourners for free, reducing the cash cost of the event
⬩ Mobilization of Volunteers: The Basij paramilitary force is coordinating logistics and crowd management, often using volunteer labor and existing paramilitary resources rather than hiring paid contractors
In summary, the money is coming from a temporary oil revenue surge enabled by the U.S. sanctions waiver, which the regime has prioritized to fund a state spectacle essential for its political survival, even as it struggles with broader economic constraints.
Okay, end of the AI interaction, and now to my comments
Given how cash strapped the regime is, I found it unbelievable, even for them, to blow all that cash on this 6 city funeral tour. Also, at the end of it, the US just snapped back the sanctions, so the islamic regime is no longer being allowed to continue selling the oil. They got some breathing room for a few days to alleviate their finances, and instead of using the opportunity to pay the IRGC/Basij personnel, they blew it all on the funeral
Not just that, it was hilarious seeing regime figures being denied visas to Iraq, w/ the result that only a part of the original retinue was allowed to fly to Najaf. At both Najaf & Karbala, they were caught up in undignified crowds, w/ a coffin being stolen at one of the venues 😂🤣 I daresay that there may have been crowds in Iraq, as opposed to Tehran or Qom
Finally, on the day of his burial at Mashhad, a number of IRGC commanders were gunned down by the MeK. Which is a terrorist organization that’s hated by Iranians for being pro-Saddam in the 1980s. If the Iranians don’t have an uprising soon, it may end up w/ the MeK seizing power in Tehran
OLD GUY says
On another note it sounds like Israel and America missed an opportunity to take the regime’s major supporters down. All is fair in love and war.