Russia and Iran’s terror proxies show up for Khamenei funeral, but Mojtaba is nowhere to be seen

Russia and Iran’s terror proxies show up for Khamenei funeral, but Mojtaba is nowhere to be seen

Yulia Pobegailova

Iran’s senior leadership and foreign allies gathered in Tehran on Friday as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lay in state, but the late supreme leader’s son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, was notably absent from the first day of ceremonies.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and other senior Iranian officials paid their respects at the Grand Mosalla prayer hall, where Khamenei’s coffin was displayed alongside those of family members killed with him in the February U.S.-Israeli strike that launched the war.

Foreign delegations also arrived in force, including representatives from Russia, China, Pakistan, Iraq and other non-Western states, as well as senior delegations from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. No Western leaders attended the ceremony, which Tehran is staging as a show of loyalty to the Islamic Republic and defiance toward its enemies.

Senior figures from Iran-backed terror groups were also present, turning the ceremony into a show of unity across the regime’s regional proxy network. The Houthis sent Supreme Political Council member Mohammad Saleh al-Nuaimi, Hezbollah was represented by the deputy head of its Political Bureau, Mahmoud Qomati, Hamas by Political Bureau figures Mousa Abu Marzouk and Osama Hamdan, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad by its secretary-general, Ziyad Nakhaleh.

The most politically charged absence was that of Mojtaba Khamenei, who was named to succeed his father but has not appeared publicly since the strike that killed Khamenei, his wife and other family members. Public statements have been issued in his name, but his condition and whereabouts remain a focus of intense speculation.

Iran is holding several days of funeral processions for Khamenei, whose 37-year dictatorial rule ended in the opening strike of the war. The ceremonies come as the clerical establishment and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seek to project unity after surviving what they cast as an existential confrontation with the United States and Israel.