Iran's former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was reported dead by local media at the outbreak of the country's war with Israel and the United States, has appeared in public alive at the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad, who led Iran from 2005 to 2013, had been believed killed by a missile strike near his home and had not been seen or heard from for months, so his reappearance is a striking reversal of the earlier reports of his death.

He was photographed on Monday among a crowd of black-clad mourners in Tehran, wearing a jacket with a mask pulled down to his neck. The funeral was for Khamenei and family members reportedly killed in an airstrike on 28 February, with a flag-draped coffin carried on a decorated truck. Iran's leadership encouraged the huge turnout — with crowds stretching for miles from Azadi Square — as a show of strength, coming as the Islamic Republic negotiates with the US over a permanent end to the war.