Million-strong crowds fill Najaf streets for Khamenei funeral as Iraq declares public holiday
MEMO | July 8, 2026
Million-strong crowds filled the streets of Iraq’s holy city of Najaf on Wednesday as funeral ceremonies for Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, began. His coffin will be taken to Karbala before returning to Iran for burial in Mashhad, bringing to an end a week-long farewell.
Iranian leaders sought to reflect Khamenei’s status during the ceremonies. He led the Islamic Republic for nearly four decades before being killed in US-Israeli strikes on his residence in Tehran on 28 February, attacks that marked the start of the Middle East war.
Khamenei’s funeral in Iraq coincided with renewed tensions between Iran and the United States over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which was a major flashpoint during the regional conflict.
The US military said it had carried out strikes on more than 80 Iranian targets in response to attacks on three ships in the Strait of Hormuz that Washington blamed on Tehran. In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had targeted dozens of US military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait.
Khamenei’s coffin arrived at Najaf International Airport late on Tuesday, where it was received by Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi and other political and military figures.
Iraq declared Wednesday a public holiday to allow citizens to take part in the funeral ceremonies before the coffin returns to Iran for the final burial in Mashhad.
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Book Review
How the CIA hid their MKULTRA mind-control program
By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | September 17, 2021
Back in the early 1990s, I spoke with John Marks, author of Search for the Manchurian Candidate. This was the book (1979) that helped expose the existence and range of the infamous CIA MKULTRA program.
Marks related the following facts to me. He had originally filed many Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests for documents connected to the CIA’s mind-control program. He got nothing back.
Finally, as if to play a joke on him, someone at the CIA sent Marks 10 boxes of financial and accounting records. The attitude was, “Here, see what you can do with this.”
I’ve seen some of those records. They’re very boring reading.
But Marks went through them, and lo and behold, he found he could piece together MKULTRA projects, based on the funding data.
Eventually, he assembled enough information to begin naming names. He conducted interviews. The shape of MKULTRA swam into view. And so he wrote his book, Search for the Manchurian Candidate.
He told me that three important books had been written about MKULTRA, and they all stemmed from those 10 boxes of CIA financial records. There was his own book; Operation Mind Control by Walter Bowart; and The Mind Manipulators by Alan Scheflin and Edward Opton. … continue
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