A mosque in Northern Virginia with alleged financial ties to the Iranian regime held a remembrance service for Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed over the weekend in joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Tehran, the Washington Examiner reported on Monday.
Manassas Mosque in Manassas, about 30 miles from Washington, hosted a Sunday night Ramadan iftar to honor “His Eminence” Khamenei, inviting worshipers to mourn his “martyrdom,” according to an Instagram post cited in the report.
The Shia center has previously expressed support for Hamas after the October 2023 terrorist attacks on Israel, and its imam, Abolfazl Bahram Nahidian, has promoted conspiracy theories blaming Israel for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Examiner said.
The mosque received $193,000 from the Iranian-run Alavi Foundation in 2004–05, whose assets the Justice Department later sought to seize over alleged funding of Iran’s nuclear efforts, and was identified by House Republicans in 2023 as one of four U.S. Islamic organizations suspected of links to Tehran, according to the report.
The Examiner noted the mosque has also featured tributes to slain Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and recently co-sponsored marches on the White House amid heightened U.S.-Iran tensions, and that its leaders did not respond to a request for comment.
