Mourners for slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expressed rage at the United States during his week-long memorial on Saturday.
Khamenei ruled Iran for 37 years before being killed in the initial wave of U.S.-Israeli airstrikes that kicked off the war in Iran earlier this year.
“We will certainly avenge his blood,” Arash Rahimi, 40, told the Reuters. “Everyone here has come to avenge the blood of their Supreme Leader. As our leader has said, we have a blood feud with the United States. Our relations with the United States will never be good.”
Khamenei's coffin, as well as some of those for close family members, are on public display in Tehran on Saturday.
"Let us wail!" a compere encouraged the crowds through a loudspeaker,: according to Reuters. "Everybody chant oppressed, everyone say Hussein," he said, invoking Shi'ite traditions of sacrifice, including that of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Hussein. On cue, the crowds wailed and chanted.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Posted by Anders Hagstrom