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Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been buried in the country's holiest shrine in Mashhad, northeast Iran. His burial comes after a week of mass funeral processions, rallies, and mourning ceremonies that have coincided with renewed conflict with the US. Khamenei was killed in the first strikes of the four-month-old war launched by the US and Israel on February 28. The burial in Mashhad in northeast Iran follows a week of mass funeral processions, rallies, and mourning ceremonies that has coincided with a renewed burst of conflict with the United States following weeks of truce in the four-month-old war. Khamenei was killed in the first strikes of the war launched by the United States and Israel on February 28.

Khamenei's body was carried slowly by truck on Thursday, July 9, through the crammed Mashhad streets toward the gilt dome and minarets of the Shrine of Imam Reza as white-turbaned clerics walked on either side. Black-clad mourners pressed close behind, waving Iranian flags, photographs of the late Khamenei and red placards with revolutionary slogans. The burial is the culmination of a week of funeral events in both Iran and Iraq that the Islamic Republic's clerical leaders encouraged huge crowds to attend in an effort to display the might and ideological fervor of their theocratic state.

Martyrdom holds a central place in Shi'ite theology, and Khamenei's death at the hands of foreign enemies has played into a religious and political tradition that runs deep through the Islamic Republic. Long rule and disputed legacy.

The funeral comes at a critical moment for Iran, closing nearly four decades of Khamenei's rule and months after the latest round of mass nationwide protests against the Islamic Republic. Security forces put down that unrest, sparked by anger over the sanctions-throttled economy, by killing thousands of demonstrators in a wave of repression that echoed other bouts of violence in recent years.

Analysts see Iran as having emerged from the war with the US strategically strengthened, with its grip over the vital Strait of Hormuz intact. But it has suffered widespread damage that has added to internal economic woes. The late Khamenei was appointed supreme leader in 1989, a decade after the Islamic Revolution, and over the decades he consolidated political, economic, and military power in his office.

Despite having survived a months-long blitz by the United States and Israel, Iran faces huge internal challenges, and the legacy of Khamenei's 37-year rule is bitterly disputed. 'Kill Trump' placards appear at burial ceremony.

The whereabouts of Mojtaba Khamenei, proclaimed supreme leader by a clerical assembly in early March, a week after his father's death, has remained a mystery to Iranians. He has not appeared in public since the war began.

While he has made written statements, no image, video or voice recording of him has been released. He suffered debilitating injuries in the strike that killed his father, his face disfigured and limbs badly wounded. Senior sources in Tehran have said he is recovering but that he has not yet been well enough to make public appearances.

As crowds jostled in Mashhad awaiting Khamenei's funeral cortege, they chanted slogans demanding revenge on US President Donald Trump for his killing. 'I swear by the blood of the supreme leader, Trump, we will kill you!' they shouted, with women holding up placards reading 'Kill Trump.' Chants against the US.

The shrine's courtyard was a mass of mourners as dusk fell, their defiant chants of 'Death to America' ringing out above the lyrical funeral laments and string music broadcast by loudspeakers.

A helicopter lifted Khamenei's coffin from the truck over the impenetrable crowd for the final short stretch to a blue-tiled arched recess at the shrine.

Khamenei's oldest son, Mostafa, said the funeral prayer, and a throng of male mourners carried the coffin, painted in the red, white and green of Iran's flag, inside the shrine.

Many of those gathered inside held candles, stretched their arms toward the coffin and wept, video showed. The official IRNA news agency reported early on Friday that the burials of Khamenei and four family members killed alongside him were completed.

Imam Reza was one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest figures, and the shrine complex in Mashhad, Khamenei's hometown, is a center for pilgrimage.

Khamenei's remains were previously paraded through Tehran, the Shi'ite Muslim clerical center of Qom and the Iraqi shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala.

At each event, huge crowds have thronged the streets to the mournful accompaniment of sung Shi'ite laments and chanted revolutionary slogans.

And as the funeral procession moved through Mashhad, protesters chanted slogans demanding revenge against US President Donald Trump, who they blame for the death of their leader.

The protesters held up placards that read 'Khal Khorrami' (Trump's name in Farsi) and chanted 'Death to America.'