Funeral ceremonies for Iran’s late supreme Lleader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have begun in the Iraqi city of Najaf, which is sacred to Shia Muslims.
A funeral procession set off early on Wednesday, with local reports suggesting that hundreds of thousands of people turned out.
Among those taking part in the procession were Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and senior religious and political leaders from Iraq.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Ali al-Saidi had received Khamenei’s body the previous evening.
The so-called Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an alliance of predominantly Shia militias in Iraq loyal to Iran, reported that more than 2 million people had turned out for the funeral procession in Najaf.
There was no confirmation of the figures from other sources, but images showed enormous crowds.
The majority of Iraqis are Shia. Their heartland lies around their holy sites of Najaf and Karbala, south of the capital Baghdad.
Iraq and Iran are today linked by close religious, political and economic ties, and Tehran wields considerable influence in Iraq.
Following a funeral prayer in Najaf, a funeral procession followed by prayers was also planned in Karbala.
Khamenei is due to be buried on Thursday in his hometown of Mashhad after days of processions across Iran and Iraq.
The late leader was killed on February 28 in an Israeli airstrike on his official residence in Tehran.
The US and Israel subsequently waged war against Iran for more than five weeks, until representatives from Washington and Tehran agreed on a ceasefire in early April.
However, despite the ceasefire and a framework agreement to end the war, there have been several instances of further attacks by both sides.