Total chaos broke out in the heart of Tehran Monday night as the funeral and mourning ceremony for Ali Khamenei turned into an unprecedented display of internal hostility, with President Masoud Pezeshkian himself becoming the target of the crowd's rage, according to a Kikar HaShabbat report.
Videos circulating on social media documented dramatic moments in which enraged mobs, identified with the regime's most extremist factions, surrounded Pezeshkian and shouted at him, chanting death to the compromisers, death to traitors, and death to normalizers.
According to the report, the fury that erupted in the streets is a direct result of a surprising framework agreement signed between Iran and the United States and the start of formal negotiations. While Pezeshkian is trying to lead a path of compromise to prevent economic collapse, loyalists of Khamenei and hardliners from the Jalili camp reportedly view the move as an outright betrayal of the Islamic Revolution's values.
The drama in Tehran deepened with the publication of a letter attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, the late leader's son and the man considered his successor. According to the letter, Mojtaba himself had reservations about the agreement with Washington, but only approved the president's signing of it after Pezeshkian agreed to take full personal responsibility for its consequences.
The report suggests the new leader appears to have chosen to leave the president exposed to the fury of activists from Atash Beh Ekhtiar, or Fire at Will, extremist groups that at times operate independently and violently in the streets. While the hardliners chant death to the traitor, voices among regime opponents and the broader public are reportedly hoping the internal rift will lead to the collapse of the entire apparatus.
Commentators cited in the report note that the tension has reached a peak in which hardline regime operatives, many of whom are accused of past torture and killings of protesters, fear that a compromise with the West will ultimately lead to their own prosecution and the end of their rule. For now, Tehran remains as tense as ever, with the agreement with the United States, which was supposed to bring calm, instead becoming the catalyst that has unleashed the regime's most frightening elements onto the streets, this time against its own leadership.
