Ahmadinejad 'back from dead' as he is seen at Ayatollah's funeral

The former president of Iran, who was reported dead at the start of the war, has been spotted at the funeral of his country's Supreme Leader. 

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who governed Iran from 2005 to 2013, was declared dead by local news outlets on the day the war broke out, after Israeli and US strikes targeted Tehran's leaders.

Iranian media believed he had been killed when a missile struck near his home, and was not seen or heard from in the months that followed. 

But on Monday, he was seen in public for the first time since the war broke out back in February, after he was spotted among a crowd of mourners ahead of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's funeral. 

A picture shows Ahmadinejad in the crowd wearing a jacket with a mask pulled down to his neck as mourners dressed in black flooded into Iran's capital on Monday for a procession as part of the Ayatollah's funeral. 

Khamenei's flag-draped coffin, and those of his family members who were killed on February 28 in an airstrike, sat aboard a truck decorated to resemble the ornamental grating that surrounds the shrine of an imam. 

The massive turnout was encouraged by Iran's theocracy as a sign of strength, and it came as the Islamic Republic negotiates with the US over a permanent end to the war. 

Helicopter images aired on Iranian state television showed a massive crowd stretching for miles from Tehran's Azadi, or Freedom, Square along a multilane street of the sameIran's former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was reported dead at the start of the war, has been spotted at the funeral of his country's Supreme Leader. He is pictured in this image wearing a light brown jacket and a mask pulled down to his neck name. 

The crowd appeared to be larger than the one that turned out for the 2020 procession for the late Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani, which drew over 1 million people.

Authorities offered no immediate crowd count as the truck crept down the street.

People alongside the truck and elsewhere on the route carried placards, signs and banners calling for Trump's death. 

US federal authorities have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and other administration officials for years, stemming from Trump’s ordering the 2020 killing of Soleimani, who led the elite Quds Force. 

Iran has repeatedly denied plotting to kill Trump, though hard-line propaganda footage long has suggested Trump was in Tehran’s crosshairs.

Trump, meanwhile, promised to destroy Iran’s civilisation during the war, among other threats.

The US is eager to press ahead with negotiations with Iran aimed at fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz, rolling back Tehran’s disputed nuclear program and reaching a permanent end to the war. Talks appear to be on hold until after the burial.

The funeral was in part a show of unity as Iran demands a measure of control over the strait, a vital waterway for global energy that it shut down during the war. 

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