Three sons of Iran's slain leader appear at funeral, not his successor

Three sons of slain Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prayed beside his coffin and those of four other family members on Sunday, but Mojtaba, the son who succeeded him as Iran's supreme leader, did not make an appearance.



State TV showed Mostafa, Meysam and Masoud Khamenei praying behind the coffins laid out in the vast courtyard of Tehran's Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla, a sprawling religious complex.



Their father, alongside several other members of the family, was killed in an airstrike when the United States and Israel launched a war on Iran on February 28.

The conflict, which raged for several weeks before the sides reached a shaky ceasefire, has caused death and destruction across the region and left Iran's theocratic government, backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in power.