Old funeral clip falsely linked to Iran war
- Published on March 3, 2026 at 13:22
- 2 min read
- By Akshita KUMARI, AFP India
A joint US-Israeli strike killed Iran's supreme leader in February 2026, prompting retaliatory attacks by Tehran targeting US allies in the Gulf. But a widely shared video supposedly depicting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's funeral is unrelated; the old clip shows mourners in Iraq during the burial of the brother of a powerful cleric in January.
"Funeral of Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei, video goes viral on social media," reads a Hindi-language Facebook post shared March 1, 2026.
It includes footage of a crowd praying and crying as a casket passes through a street. Text overlaid on the video repeats the caption.
Iranian state media confirmed Khamenei's death on March 1, and within hours mourners dressed in black took to the streets in Tehran's central Enghelab Square (archived link).
Other Iranians erupted into cheers from apartment buildings in the capital while some blared car horns and blasted music in the streets.
The attacks that killed Khamenei and top military leaders prompted Iranian authorities to retaliate with strikes on Israel and across the Gulf.
US President Donald Trump warned the war could extend longer than a month, as the conflict spread across the Middle East (archived link).
The video was also misrepresented in similar posts on Instagram, Threads and X.
A reverse image search using the video's keyframes found it was earlier posted on Facebook on January 20, 2026 (archived link).
Similar visuals were published by Iranian state media network Press TV, saying the footage shows funeral rites for Sayyid Hadi al-Husseini, brother of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's highest Shiite Muslim authority (archived link).
According to Iraq's news agency The Shafaqna, he was buried in the central holy city of Najaf (archived link).
Corresponding pictures of the funeral in Iraq have also been taken by an AFP photographer.
More of our reporting on misinformation surrounding the conflict in the Middle East can be found here.
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