RABAT, July 9. /TASS/. The funeral ceremony for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that was originally scheduled to begin in the Iranian city of Mashhad in the early hours on July 9 has been postponed until the evening of the same day due continuing mourning ceremonies in neighboring Iraq, the funeral committee said.

"Due to the mass and solemn farewell ceremonies for the late Leader Ali Khamenei that took place in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, the arrival of Khamenei's coffin in Mashhad has been postponed," it said, as cited by the Baghdad Today news portal. "The ceremony [in Mashhad] will take place at 2:00 p.m. local time (11:00 a.m. GMT) on Thursday."

According to the committee, the funeral procession with the late leader’s coffin will start from Mashhad’s main street toward the Imam Reza Shrine, where Ali Khamenei will be buried.

According to earlier reports, the farewell ceremony for Ali Khamenei in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala took longer than planned as crowds of people took to the streets to take part in the in it. According to the command of the Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces (Al-Hashd al-Shaabi), which is helping maintain order during the mourning events, more than four million people took part in the farewell ceremonies in Karbala.

According to the Religious Affairs Committee of Karbala Province, after the mourning ceremonies conclude, Khamenei's coffin will be returned to Iraq’s Najaf and then transported to Mashhad in Iran. Available information indicates that the coffin will be flown from Najaf International Airport to Mashhad on a special flight scheduled to depart between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. local time.

Farewell ceremonies for Khamenei, who was killed on February 28, began in Tehran on July 3. For several days, the ayatollah's body lay in state at Tehran's Mosalla, the capital's largest religious and public complex, where members of the public were able to pay their respects. A mourning procession took place in Tehran on July 6, after which the remains were transferred to Iran's main religious center, the city of Qom. On the evening of July 7, Khamenei's coffin was taken to Iraq for farewell ceremonies in Najaf and Karbala.