At the funeral of Ayatollah Khamenei, a large crowd gathered in Tehran

Hundreds of people dressed in black appeared at the gates of Tehran’s main mosque on the first day of the funeral for Iran’s former supreme leader.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s body will be laid to rest on the Great Mossala ahead of his burial in his hometown of Mashhad next Thursday.

Officials expect 15-20 million people to attend the ceremonies in Iran and Iraq in the coming days, more than four months after Khamenei was killed in US and Israeli strikes.

It is reported that many supporters of the Islamic regime were present in the early hours of Saturday and raised slogans against the US to avenge the killing of the Ayatollah.

“We came to the funeral because we made a promise to the great leader that we will stand by his side until the end,” 37-year-old Professor Reza told news agency Agence France-Presse in the Mosala compound.

“For a long time we have been shouting that we will sacrifice our lives for the leader, but he is the one who sacrificed himself for us.”

“Everyone here is here to avenge the blood of their supreme leader,” Arash Rahimi, 40, told Reuters.

“As our leader said, we have a blood feud with America. Our relationship with America will never be good.”

Khamenei was killed in late February following an Israeli-US attack on Iran, which quickly escalated into a wider regional conflict.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that the Iranian government was “about to conclude a peace deal” to end the war, after a preliminary agreement was reached between the two.

Much of central Tehran will be closed for the weekend while the funeral takes place. The funeral ceremony is expected to be the largest in terms of the country’s population in terms of audience.

Khamenei’s body will lie in state in Grand Mossala for three days alongside the remains of family members killed in the airstrikes.

Then there will be three more days of events outside the capital.