As an 18-year-old pilgrim, Iran’s slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spent two months in 1957 touring the cities of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, home to some of Shia Islam’s holiest sites.
Between the travel restrictions he faced during his years as a political dissident and the long-running war between Iran and Iraq, he never returned. But this week, months after his killing by the US and Israel, Khamenei’s body has been brought back for mass public commemorations on Wednesday.
Much like they have in Iran, vast crowds are expected to turn out in Shia-majority Iraq to commemorate and pray over Khamenei’s coffin as it tours the two sites, before being transported back to Iran for final burial in his hometown of Mashhad. Many mourners are travelling from across Iraq and the Shia world.
The logistics have largely been co-ordinated by Iraq’s Shia militias, many of whom are backed by Tehran and joined its retaliation during the US-Israeli war on Iran. They have already flooded the streets with posters, pamphlets and billboards commemorating Khamenei and urged their supporters to attend Wednesday’s processions.
It is not unusual for the body of a pious Shia Muslim to be taken to the Najaf shrine before interment. But there is little precedent for a foreign dignitary to be venerated in this way — particularly one so polarising at home and abroad.
To his supporters, he embodied resistance to Israel and the US. But to his critics, he was loathed for presiding over an Iranian project that, over his nearly four decades of power, entrenched armed non-state actors, weakened state authority and fuelled sectarian bloodshed. In Iraq, Tehran-backed militias have become powerful political and military players that have crushed dissent and fuelled corruption.
Najaf and Karbala confer a kind of religious capital that Tehran cannot manufacture on its own. But the regime is seeking to turn the event into a transnational rallying cry, a show of force to demonstrate that despite recent blows landed against Tehran and its network of regional proxies — the so-called axis of resistance — it can still mobilise enormous crowds.
“The Iranian regime is trying to project force, to say that its axis of resistance not only managed to face this existential threat, but it came out stronger,” said Harith Hasan, an Iraqi academic at the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies in Doha.
It is an attempt “to show that they’re still influential, that their regional project is still supported not only by Iranians but by Shia Arabs and Muslims all over the region”.
But the event comes at a delicate moment for the new government, led by the politically novice Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi. The public display of Iranian influence will take place just days before the new premier is expected to meet Donald Trump in Washington, whose administration has been pressuring Baghdad to curb Iranian influence.
As ever, Iraq is caught between the two competing poles: Iran, which is seeking to maintain its position in Iraq; and Washington, which wants to diminish Tehran’s reach by pushing to integrate Iran-backed armed groups into the state security apparatus.
As a member of the Shia ruling class, Zaidi “cannot distance himself from this event”, said Sajad Jiyad, an Iraq-based analyst with The Century Foundation think-tank. “He’s got to make a show of [Khamenei’s funeral] but he will also have to deal with Trump and his demands next week.”
Iraqi media reported Zaidi asked Iran not to hold any events in Baghdad to mute the political undertones.
Najaf is home to the shrine of Imam Ali, the Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law and the first leader of the Shia sect. Karbala is where Ali’s son Hussein, his family and a small band of followers were killed in 680 AD by the Umayyad ruler Yazid after refusing to pledge allegiance, solidifying the split between Islam’s Sunni majority and Shia minority.
The story of Karbala has been woven into the ideology of the Islamic republic, which has heavily leaned on ideas of martyrdom and resistance for its own legitimacy. This extends to Khamenei’s killing — along with members of his family — at the start of the war, which supporters likened to that of Hussein.
That the funeral is taking place during the holy month of Muharram — the emotional high point of the Shia religious calendar — only deepens the symbolism. Hussein’s death is commemorated in its first ten days and 40 days later, millions of pilgrims, many from Iran, typically flock to Karbala in one of the world’s largest religious gatherings.
The Iraqi leg of the procession is especially sensitive because Najaf has been the seat of a clerical tradition, currently led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, that has often implicitly challenged Iran’s model of theocratic rule.
The establishment in Najaf has vastly more followers around the world than Khamenei, whose clerical credentials and claim to wider religious authority have long been contested.
But the US-Israeli war on Iran has helped galvanise support, including from Najaf. “They may have been critical of the regime behind closed doors, but they blame the US and Israel for ganging up on Iran. So this show of unity is also for the Americans,” said Jiyad.
Tehran’s network of regional armed groups, namely Hizbollah and Hamas, was severely weakened in the wars that followed the latter’s October 7 2023 attack on Israel and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.
It was the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq which toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, that strengthened and expanded the militias’ roles and the Iranian influence that the US has subsequently spent years trying to dilute.
Iraqis attending on Wednesday have varied reasons for doing so, analysts said. Some will be driven by Iraq’s patronage networks — politicians, parties, armed groups and tribes — that will mandate attendance and co-ordinate it in a show of support for Tehran.
Others will be drawn by sympathy for Iran and Khamenei and the way he was killed. “This even applies to those who oppose Iran’s role in Iraq or the Middle East,” said Hassan.
“And some people will show up because of religious identity,” said Hasan. “This type of regime, that has a strong ideological project, the performativity is very important.”
Most of Iraq’s ruling elites in both political parties and armed groups are expected to attend.
Many of them have longstanding ties to the regime and see the ceremonies as a show of support from Tehran for their fledgling government. Zaidi is expected to attend.
Although some militias have recently expressed a willingness to integrate themselves into Iraq’s armed forces, those closest to Tehran have refused. They are expected to make themselves visible on Wednesday — a public demonstration of fealty at a time when Iran is counting who its friends are.
But it is also an outwards message for the US and Israel, following their attempts to weaken Tehran. “Iran will not abandon the ‘axis of resistance’ under any conditions,” said a reformist Iranian analyst.
Additional reporting by Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran and cartography by Steven Bernard in London
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