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Tehran is making ready for the July 9 burial of Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei, greater than 4 months after his demise, as authorities mobilize the Basij militia and mount a large safety operation forward of what’s anticipated to be a “historic” turnout.
The prolonged delay to the funeral has raised questions on how Khamenei’s stays have been preserved, as Islamic custom, anaylsts say, usually requires immediate burial and discourages chemical embalming.
“The mechanism is sort of definitely refrigerated chilly storage, not embalming, as Islam bars chemical embalming,” counterterrorism professional Dr. Mohammed Omar advised Fox Information Digital.
MOJTABA KHAMENEI USING ‘BIN LADEN TEMPLATE’ TO SURVIVE, LEARNED FROM ABBOTTABAD: ANALYST
Iran’s Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei speaks in Tehran, Iran, on Jan 3. (Iranian Chief Press Workplace/Anadolu by way of Getty Photos)
“Shia regulation permits delayed burial and preservation by chilly in distinctive circumstances, and a clerical exemption for a Supreme Chief is simple to get,” he added.
“Iran’s forensic morgues already maintain our bodies for months, so 4 months in freezing just isn’t unique. That’s what ‘non secular and authorized requirements’ cowl,” Mohammed stated.
Operation Epic Fury started on Feb. 28 with a targeted U.S. strike that killed Khamenei at his compound in Tehran. He had dominated the Islamic Republic for 36 years.
“There might not be a lot of a physique to current. Khamenei was killed by a bunker-penetration strike, and others killed with him had been recovered weeks later and recognized by DNA,” Mohammed defined.
“A regime holding an intact physique doesn’t cancel the farewell, shift the burial web site repeatedly, and make sure that he will be buried solely days out.
“It reads much less like reverence and extra like stays they may protect however not show,” he stated.
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On this image obtained from Iran’s ISNA information company, Mojtaba Khamenei (C), son of Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, walks alongside a avenue in Tehran on Might 31, 2019. (Hamid FOROUTAN / ISNA / AFP by way of Getty Photos)
With that, Iranian authorities are portraying the funeral as each a farewell to the chief and a present of power below the slogan “We Should Avenge.”
In response to Iranian state media, Yaqoub Soleimani, deputy for cultural and academic affairs on the Martyrs Basis and one of many funeral’s organizers, stated Wednesday the ceremony can be performed “with full grandeur.”
Soleimani stated a turnout of 1 million folks would make the occasion “a historic event” and “a nationwide epic within the reminiscence of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The schedule begins with public viewings Saturday and Sunday in Tehran. A funeral procession is scheduled for July 6, the place native authorities estimate 15 million to twenty million folks might attend.
One other procession is deliberate the next day in Qom, considered one of Shiite Islam’s holiest cities.
“The numbers the regime is placing out — as much as 20 million mourners in Tehran, 35 million nationwide, greater than 90 nations represented, 14,000 journalists credentialed — should not logistics,” Mohammed, of the George Washington Program on Extremism, stated.
“They’re the message. Tehran is spending every thing it has to challenge continuity and power as a result of after the battle each are in query.”
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Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) army personnel are strolling alongside Enghelab (Revolution) Avenue as an Iranian Kheibar Floor-to-Floor missile is being unveiled through the Ela Beit Al-Moghaddas (Al-Aqsa Mosque) army rally in Tehran, Iran, on November 24, 2023. The IRGC is unveiling two new missiles through the rally. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto by way of Getty Photos)
In response to Iran International, Tehran can be making ready a large safety operation for the funeral.
“The Basij and the IRGC operating that is the story, not a element,” Mohammed stated.
“The Basij is coordinating logistics — highways changed into parking, every Tehran district assigned a province, 5 public holidays declared — and the Guard has crowd management.
“It is a mobilization dressed as a funeral. The identical equipment organizing the grief this week is the equipment that put down the January protests and denied funerals to the households of the folks it killed then. American readers ought to maintain these two info subsequent to one another,” he added.
Whereas senior Iraqi officers will attend the funeral, illustration from different main powers might be restricted.
Though Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian personally invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India will as a substitute ship a lower-level official delegation.
Reports on June 30 additionally confirmed that Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili will attend the ceremony.
“No main energy is sending its high chief,” Mohammed stated.
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“For a regime that claims to steer a entrance stretching from Beirut to Sanaa, a regional turnout at its founder-successor’s funeral is the isolation exhibiting by way of the pageantry.
“For Washington, it’s a helpful readout: the war left Tehran’s axis smaller and extra regional than the regime advertises,” he added.
