00:28Three of his
00:29his sons carried Ayatollah Khamenei to grave.
00:33The fourth, the one who's supposed to be running the entire country right now, was nowhere
00:38to be seen.
00:40Six months, zero public appearances, and today we find out why.
00:46Friday July 10th, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader for 37 years, was buried at
00:54the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, his hometown.
00:57It was the final stop of a six-day funeral that crossed Tehran, Qalm, Najaf and Karbala
01:05before ending here.
01:07Iranian state officials claimed up to 15 million mourners turned out.
01:12He'd been killed back in February, in the U.S.-Israeli strike that opened the war on Iran.
01:18It took over four months of conflict before his family could actually put him in the ground.
01:24The funeral prayer, the religious ritual that happens right before burial, was led by his
01:30eldest son, Mostafa.
01:32Two more sons, Masood and Maisam, stood beside him at the grave.
01:37Three brothers, physically there, burying their father.
01:41But the son everyone actually wanted to see?
01:45Missing.
01:46Moshtaba Khamenei was declared Iran's new supreme leader in early March, one week after
01:52his father's death.
01:53And since then, nothing.
01:55No photo, no video, no voice.
01:58Just written statements released in his name.
02:01At his own father's burial, crowds were chanting, Here I am at your service, Mushtaba, pledging
02:08loyalty to a man they've genuinely never seen.
02:11A blurry video from earlier in the week showed a mystery cleric watching from a balcony, and
02:17it went viral, with people guessing it might be him, never confirmed.
02:22Israel's government even took a public jab at it online, sarcastically thanking him for
02:28his passionate presence at the funeral he skipped.
02:31So dead or alive, every credible report says the same thing, alive, badly injured, and deliberately
02:39kept out of sight.
02:41The U.S. defense secretary said in March he was wounded and likely disfigured in the same
02:47strike that killed his father.
02:49Reports from April describe severe facial and leg injuries, with some suggesting he may have
02:55lost a leg.
02:57President Trump said last month the younger Khamenei was more rational than his father,
03:02effectively confirming he's alive, just in rough shape.
03:06Sources in Tehran say he's recovering, but security officials are limiting his exposure,
03:12partly for health reasons, partly because Israel has reportedly called him marked for death.
03:19Iran wants to project strength right now.
03:22Instead, hiding your leader from his own father's funeral raises the exact question they're trying
03:28to avoid, who's actually in charge?
03:31Khamenei is in the ground, the funeral's over, but Iran's next chapter is being led, allegedly,
03:39by a man nobody has seen, heard, or confirmed is even capable of leading.
03:45That's the real story here, not the funeral, the silence after it.
03:52That's the real story here, not the real story here, not the real story here, not the real story.
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