Field Marshal Asim Munir reaches Tehran to attend Ali Khamenei’s funeral

TEHRAN – Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) Field Marshal Asim Munir on Friday arrived in Tehran to attend the funeral of Iran’s assassinated supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s top civil and military official received the Pakistan Army chief while Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, who reached Iran earlier in the day, was also presented at the airport to receive him. Earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif departed from Islamabad for his one-day visit to Iran to attend the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Syed Ali Khamenei. Speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar, Chairman of Pakistan People’s Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Secretary General of Pakistan People’s Party Nayyer Hussain Bukhari, and Chief Minister of Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah are accompanying the prime minister. PM Shehbaz will participate in the funeral rites of Iran’s late supreme leader in Tehran. On behalf of the Pakistani people and government, the premier will express heartfelt condolences to the Iranian leadership and the bereaved families and reaffirm Pakistan’s complete solidarity with the brotherly Iranian nation in this hour of grief. Thereafter, the prime minister will proceed from Tehran to Istanbul for his bilateral visit to Turkiye. The funeral ceremonies for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei began today as his body was taken to the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla in central Tehran. He was 86 years old at the time of his reported martyrdom on February 28 during U.S.-Israeli strikes that, according to the account, triggered a regional conflict. The mourning period is expected to continue for six days, with commemorative events taking place across key religious and cultural centers, including Tehran, Qom, Najaf, and Mashhad, reflecting solidarity among many across the Islamic world. Iranian