Khamenei burial delay sparks wave of dark humor online

The Charity Commission said charities could be affected in different ways by the “volatile situation” in Iran and the wider Middle East and urged trustees to carefully assess the risks of political activity, public statements and overseas operations.

The watchdog said organizations working in or commenting on Iran should be mindful that individuals and groups in the country are subject to sanctions and other restrictions under UK law.

“As a civil regulator we will respond robustly to evidence of links between charities and extremism or terrorism,” a Charity Commission statement said. “We will make referrals to other agencies where appropriate including where there is evidence of criminality.”

Trustees were reminded that any political activity must directly support a charity’s stated purpose and comply with regulations governing campaigning and social media use.

“In the current context, the Commission urges charities to be careful to ensure that any political activity they are involved in furthers their charity’s objects and complies with our guidance,” the regulator said.

The statement comes amid longstanding concerns in Britain that networks connected to Iran have used charities and religious organizations to promote political influence.

Several UK-based charities have faced investigations in recent years over alleged links to groups aligned with Tehran.

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In 2024, the Charity Commission opened a compliance case involving the London-based Dar Alhekma Trust and the Abrar Islamic Foundation following a dossier alleging connections to organizations backed by Iran. Both groups deny wrongdoing.

Other organizations have drawn political criticism over activities seen by some lawmakers as promoting narratives aligned with the Islamic Republic. Conservative MP Bob Blackman last year accused Iran-linked groups of exploiting Britain’s charity sector to expand influence and “sow discord” in local communities.

Security officials and lawmakers have also warned that Tehran has used networks in Europe to extend ideological influence, even as regulators emphasize the need to balance scrutiny with protections for lawful religious and charitable activity.

The ministry said the operation was carried out jointly with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and resulted in the destruction of bases and ammunition depots belonging to the groups.

“Separatist terrorist groups intended to enter the country through the western borders, with the support of the American and Zionist enemy, and carry out attacks in urban and border areas,” the ministry said. “A significant portion of their positions and facilities were destroyed and heavy losses were inflicted.”

The statement added that Iranian forces were coordinating with Kurdish residents in border areas to monitor movements and prevent attacks.

“Armed forces and intelligence units, with the cooperation of courageous Kurdish compatriots, will thwart the American-Zionist enemy’s plans for any aggression against the country’s territory,” the ministry said.

Border officials reject infiltration reports

Local authorities in the western border region denied reports that armed fighters had entered Iran.

“No report of infiltration or illegal movement of armed groups has been registered in this part of the border,” the governor of Qasr-e Shirin on the Iraqi border said, according to Iranian media.

The reports circulating on social media about armed groups crossing the western border had no factual basis, the governor added.

Meanwhile, Nechirvan Barzani, president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, said on Thursday that the autonomous region would not be part of any military confrontation or escalation.

A spokesperson for Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government also denied reports.

“Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government denies reports claiming it is involved in plans to arm Kurdish opposition groups and send them into Iran,” the spokesperson said. “The Kurdistan Regional Government is not part of any campaign to expand war or tensions in the region.”

After joint Israeli-US strikes on Iran, the Islamic Republic and allied Shiite militias launched ballistic missile and drone attacks on Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, which hosts several Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in exile.

The strikes mainly targeted the regional capital, Erbil, where explosions, air-raid sirens and missile interceptions were reported.

Regional responses and US position

Regional officials and Washington also commented on Kurdish groups. Turkey said it was closely monitoring the activities of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), an Iranian Kurdish opposition group linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

“The activities of groups that fuel ethnic separatism, such as the terrorist organization PJAK, negatively affect not only Iran's security but also the overall peace and stability of the region,” Turkey’s defense ministry told a weekly briefing in Ankara.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected reports that Washington planned to arm Kurdish groups.

“All I would say is none of our objectives are premised on the support or the arming of any particular force,” Hegseth said during a briefing on Wednesday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also dismissed reports that the administration was considering supplying weapons to Kurdish fighters to spark an uprising inside Iran, saying the claims had “no factual basis.”

The reports come amid speculation that Iranian Kurdish groups could play a role in the wider conflict.

Earlier this week, Axios reported that several Kurdish factions based in Iraq had recently formed a coalition and were preparing for a possible ground offensive into northwestern Iran, citing US and Israeli officials and a source within one of the groups.

The report said some fighters had moved closer to the border in recent weeks, though Kurdish factions have publicly denied launching any attack.

Axios also reported that US President Donald Trump had spoken with Kurdish leaders in Iraq about the war with Iran, while Israeli officials were said to be exploring ways Kurdish forces could increase pressure on Tehran.

Kurds are an ethnic group concentrated mainly in parts of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, with communities also elsewhere; because Iran does not publish official ethnic census data, estimates of the Kurdish population in Iran vary widely, commonly ranging from about 7 million to 15 million people, or roughly 8% to 17% of the population, with most living in Iran’s western and northwestern provinces near the borders with Iraq and Turkey.

Several Iranian Kurdish opposition parties based largely in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region – including Komala and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) – have generally framed their demands around political rights and Kurdish self-rule within Iran, often describing that goal as autonomy in a federal system, while PJAK, an Iran-based Kurdish armed group aligned with the broader PKK-linked network, has advocated more sweeping political change and Kurdish self-determination.

Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh died one day after her husband. She spent her final day in a coma at a hospital near their residence on Pasteur Avenue in central Tehran, a compound long guarded by the Revolutionary Guards but now destroyed.

Born into a religious family in Mashhad, she married Khamenei in 1964 in a traditional family-arranged ceremony. T

he couple had six children: four sons born before the 1979 Revolution and two daughters born afterward. One daughter, Hoda, was killed in the same attack that targeted Khamenei’s home and office.

A Life Lived in the Shadows

Throughout her life, Mansoureh remained one of the most private figures in Iran’s ruling elite. Her public presence was far more limited than that of Fakhr Iran Saghafi, the wife of Ruhollah Khomeini, or Effat Marashi, the wife of the late Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

So little was publicly known about her that when news of her death spread, Iranian media initially struggled to locate a reliable photograph. Some outlets mistakenly published a picture of Ategheh Rajai, the outspoken wife of another late president, Mohammad-Ali Rajai.

Her public voice survives almost entirely through two interviews: one with Mahjoubah magazine in the early 1990s and another with Jomhouri Eslami in 1983, shortly after Khamenei survived an assassination attempt. Most quotations attributed to her in later years originate from these two sources.

“It was not a romantic thing,” she said of their union. “His grandmother came to our house to propose.”

She portrayed her main role as maintaining a stable home life while her husband pursued political and religious work, stressing that she considered full hijab the appropriate attire outside the home, while dress inside could be more flexible but still follow Islamic principles.

Why she remained invisible

Her absence from public life reflected not only personal preference but also the political culture surrounding Iran’s leadership.

Khamenei largely kept his family out of public view for a mixture of religious, cultural, and security reasons. A deeply traditional cleric, he rarely allowed his wife or daughters to appear publicly, and even his sons were long shielded from public scrutiny.

Although she was never formally described as Iran’s “First Lady,” the symbolic status of the Supreme Leader’s spouse occasionally surfaced in public debate.

When Jamileh Alamolhoda, the wife of the late president Ebrahim Raisi, briefly used the title in a television interview, Iranian media reported that the description was later clarified after criticism from conservative circles that the title belonged to the Supreme Leader’s household.

She will be buried beside her husband at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, according to state media reports.

That contrast, several Iran experts told Iran International, exposes a widening divide between Western progressive activism and the lived experience of many Iranians.

Analysts say the reaction among many Iranians is not about ideological loyalty but about seeing any weakening of the Islamic Republic as a rare opportunity to escape decades of repression.

“War is violent, it's terrible and it has started. The people of Iran didn't choose this war — the Islamic government, the Islamic Republic government, chose this war,” said Siavash Rokni, an Iran pop culture expert.

“Iranians will use any opportunity to bypass the Islamic Republic to assure the fall of the Islamic Republic and the institution of a democracy,” Rokni said.

Anti-war protests taking shape in Western capitals have often featured placards supporting the very regime responsible for killing scores of Iranians, with demonstrators holding images of the now-former Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei — the man ultimately responsible for the killings.

Rokni said one cannot claim to oppose war while supporting the regime responsible for such violence.

This week, clips of Iranians dancing to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” in the exaggerated arm-pumping style popularized by Trump went viral following the confirmed death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The cultural irony is striking. “Y.M.C.A.” was released in late 1978 and was charting in early 1979 — the same period Iran’s Islamic Revolution culminated in the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Islamic Republic.

Now, decades later, the disco anthem has resurfaced as a soundtrack for some celebrating what they see as the potential unraveling of that same regime.

Celebrations were reported not only inside Iran but also in diaspora hubs including Los Angeles and London, underscoring that the reaction extended beyond Iran’s borders but largely among Iranians themselves.

Iran International has reviewed footage received directly from inside Iran in the hours following the strikes.

In one clip, explosions can be seen in the background with plumes of smoke rising over Tehran as an Iranian man says: “Thank you Mr. President, thank President Trump, we love you.”

In another video, a woman shouts “Trump!” followed by cheers, clapping and the sound of what appears to be a vuvuzela-style horn as a group of Iranians celebrate.

In a separate clip filmed inside Iran, a woman says in Farsi: “Bibi, we are happy, Netanyahu, Israel, Trump...death to Terrorist, thank you for helping us Hooray.”

Another video, recorded after the bombing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s headquarters, shows a group of young people flashing peace signs as they welcome the joint US-Israel military strikes.

Khorso Isfahani, an Iran analyst with NUFDI, framed the reaction not as celebration of war itself but as the culmination of decades of struggle.

“Iranians have been on the front line of fighting against Islamist fascist occupation of Iran for the past five decades. We have sacrificed so many lives, but it has always been an uphill battle. Finally the moment has arrived and we are celebrating it.”

David Patrikarakos, a British journalist of part-Iranian origin, said many Western activists fail to grasp that context.

“A lot of people, generally not Iranian — generally unable to find Iran on the map — feel fit to pronounce upon this,” he said, describing much of the protest movement as “signaling your virtue” while “paying no attention to the suffering and the thoughts of people inside Iran.”

He added that for many Iranians, support for Trump or Netanyahu is not ideological devotion but circumstantial.

For those celebrating, analysts say, the moment is not about endorsing war itself but about the possibility that it may mark an inflection point in a decades-long fight for political change.

Relatives said prison wards have been locked down and some staff have left their posts as explosions from strikes in Tehran continue to be heard around the clock.

Families said food distribution and cooking supplies in the women’s ward and Ward 7 had been halted, leaving inmates with only small quantities of bread. The prison store has also been closed since the attacks began, preventing detainees from purchasing additional food.

Some prisoners who managed to contact relatives said they had access only to “dry bread and water,” raising concerns about how long supplies could last.

In a letter from Evin prison, jailed human rights activist Reza Khandan wrote that thousands of detainees were being held while facing the risk of ongoing bombardment and that many services inside prisons had been disrupted. He warned that continued conflict could lead to shortages of food rations and hygiene supplies.

Khandan said responsibility for the safety of prisoners lies with Iran’s judiciary and the prison organization.

A campaign supporting political prisoner Varisheh Moradi also called for the immediate release of detainees, particularly political prisoners, saying their safety could not be guaranteed under wartime conditions.

Separately, the United Nations has raised concerns about the situation inside Iran following the escalation of the conflict.

A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said at least 787 people had been killed in Iran in the strikes, and expressed concern about civilian casualties, domestic repression, internet disruptions and the situation of political prisoners.

The UN also urged Iranian authorities to guarantee fundamental freedoms in line with international human rights law and called for the restoration of internet access, warning that communication outages could limit people’s access to vital safety information during wartime.

Evin prison in northern Tehran, known for holding political prisoners and activists, was hit during airstrikes on June 23 in last year’s 12-day war, damaging parts of the complex and raising concern about detainee safety.

Iran’s judiciary said at the time 71 people were killed, including guards, staff, inmates, visiting relatives, and nearby residents.