ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Baghdad has declared Wednesday a public holiday, coinciding with the funeral procession of Ali Khamenei (1939-2026), the Iraqi premiership announced on Tuesday, as Rudaw has learned that the body of the late Iranian supreme leader will be transferred to Iraq's southern shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala for rites before being returned to Iran for final burial.
“Prime Minister Ali Falih al-Zaidi has directed that official working hours be suspended tomorrow, Wednesday, to coincide with the funeral procession of the [late] leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei,” the premier’s office said in a statement.
A day earlier, head of Iraq's Security Media Cell (SMC) Lieutenant General Saad Maan announced that Iraq has completed all logistical and security preparations for the procession, noting that Khamenei's body is set to arrive in the country on Tuesday evening.
For his part, Ali al-Badri, head of the media department at the shrine of Abbas ibn Ali - son of the first Shia Imam, Ali ibn Abi Talib - in Iraq's southern holy city of Karbala, told Rudaw's Hastyar Qadir that the late Iranian leader’s body is expected to be transferred first to the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, before moving on to the shrines of his sons Abbas and Hussain ibn Ali in Karbala on Wednesday afternoon.
"After evening prayers on Wednesday, the late leader's body will be transferred back to Iran," Badri added.
Khamenei was killed on February 28 on the first day of the joint US-Israeli aerial campaign launched against Iran along with several of the country's top leaders and commanders.
While several prior dates had been set for the funeral, the six-week Iran war and ensuing intermittent tit-for-tat military escalations delayed the ceremony.
The bodies of the late supreme leader and several others killed alongside him were transferred to a prominent mosque in Tehran on Friday a day before an official funeral ceremony took place Saturday and Sunday, ahead of mass processions set for Monday.
The head of the SMC, Maan, said on Monday that the ceremonies in Iraq are expected to see the "participation of all security agencies" and coverage by "more than 600 Arab and foreign journalists," as well as "over 3,000 Iraqi, Arab, and foreign media workers."
He further estimated that broad public participation would "reach millions of citizens and visitors from inside and outside Iraq," necessitating “a comprehensive security plan with the participation of various ministries and security and service agencies.”
Khamenei’s final burial is set to take place in the northern shrine city of Mashhad in northern Iran on Thursday.
