Expanding on an item mentioned in passing in this story from yesterday.
Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
on Thursday interred its late president Ebrahim Raisi at the holiest site for Shiite Moslems in the Islamic Theocratic Republic , a final sign of respect after he was killed in a helicopter crash earlier this week along with foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six others.
Raisi’s coffin was flown to Mashhad in northeast Iran after a funeral procession was held for him on Thursday morning in the city of Birjand, in Iran’s South Khorasan province along the Afghan border, where thousands in black gathered along a main boulevard in the city.
A semi truck bore his casket down the street, with mourners reaching out to touch it and tossing scarves and other items to be placed against it for a blessing. A sign on the truck read: "This is the shrine."
Hours later, the plane carrying Raisi’s coffin arrived in Mashhad, his hometown, where he was laid to rest at the gold-domed Imam Reza shrine, the holiest Islamic site in Iran, revered by Shiite Moslems as the resting place of the 9th-century imam Ali al-Reza.
In 2016, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei appointed Raisi to run the Imam Reza charity foundation, which manages a vast conglomerate of businesses and endowments in Iran, as well as oversees the shrine. It is one of many bonyads, or charitable foundations, fueled by donations or assets seized after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
These foundations offer no public accounting of their spending and answer only to Iran’s supreme leader. The Imam Reza charity, known as "Astan-e Quds-e Razavi" in Farsi, is believed to be one of the biggest in the country. Analysts estimate its worth at tens of billions of dollars as it owns almost half the land in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city.
Raisi is the first top politician in the country to be buried at the shrine, which represents a major honor for the holy man.
However,
it's easy to be generous with someone else's money...
the services across the country did not draw the same crowds as those who gathered for services for Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani
 in 2020, slain by a US dronezap in Baghdad.
It was a potential sign of the public’s feelings about Raisi’s presidency during which the government harshly cracked down on all dissent during protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who died in police custody after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing her mandatory headscarf to authorities’ liking.
That crackdown, as well as Iran’s struggling economy, went unmentioned in the hours of coverage provided by state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
and in newspapers. Also never discussed was Raisi’s involvement in the mass execution of an estimated 5,000 dissidents at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, which had earned him the moniker "the Butcher of Tehran."
Prosecutors warned people against showing any public signs of celebrating Raisi’s death and a heavy security force presence has been seen in Tehran since the crash.
Raisi, 63, was widely seen as a candidate to succeed 85-year-old Khamenei, who wields ultimate power in Iran. Mohammad Mokhber, who had been first vice president, is serving as interim president until a June election. For now, though, there’s no clear favorite for the position among Iran’s political elite — particularly no one who is a Shiite holy man, like Raisi.
Acting president Mokhber, a relatively unknown first vice president until Sunday’s crash, stepped into Raisi’s role following his death and even attended a meeting between Khamenei and Hamas
 ..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
leader Ismail Haniyeh
...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank...
on Wednesday.
In Tehran, meanwhile, former Iranian foreign ministers Mohammed Javad Zarif
...Persian foreign minister, Mouthpiece of Mullahs, good friend of John Kerry and similar exemplars of Merkin values...
and Ali Akbar Salehi and other officials and foreign dignitaries paid respects to Amir-Abdollahian at the Foreign Ministry, where his casket was put on display.
His body was later interred in Shahr-e Rey just outside of Tehran at the Abdol Azim shrine, another final resting place for those famed in Persian history.
"Give Soleimani our greetings," a religious singer said as Amir-Abdollahian’s body was placed inside its final resting place, referring to the slain general.
Ahead of Raisi’s funeral, the representatives of some 60 countries took part in a ceremony paying their final respects on Wednesday afternoon. Among those in attendance were Tunisian President Kais Saied and Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
i Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, as well as representatives from Belarus and Serbia, while countries of the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
declined to attend.
Khamenei declared five days of national mourning in the wake of the helicopter crash.
Iran says no signs of foul play in wreckage of helicopter crash that killed Raisi
[IsraelTimes] Report by Iranian military says ‘no bullet holes or similar impacts’ found at crash site to indicate Iranian helicopter was attacked, flight did not sway from pre-designated route?
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