The Iranian government has urged citizens to come out and show patriotism during the war, and on Wednesday they did, this time to attend a funeral procession for countrymen killed in U.S. and Israeli strikes.
Crowds wended through the streets of Tehran, the capital, to honor both high-level officials killed in Iran and the dozens of sailors who died when a U.S. submarine struck an Iranian naval vessel, the IRIS Dena, off Sri Lanka two weeks ago.
Among the officials being mourned was Iran’s top national security official, Ali Larijani, and the head of the country’s powerful plainclothes Basij militia, Brig. Gen. Gholamreza Soleimani.
Eulogies for the dead poured in on the social media platform X — inaccessible since the war began to ordinary Iranians without risky workarounds — from senior Iranian officials including the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.
Mr. Khamenei has not been seen in public since the war began on Feb. 28, but on Wednesday, mourners could be spotted holding flags of the Islamic republic imprinted with his image.
Part of the funeral procession was held in Enghelab Square, against a backdrop of a new mural showing uniformed sailors and an inscription: “The brave of the sea live on forever in Iran’s memory.”
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