slain

The late supreme leader will be buried in his hometown, the eastern holy city of Mashhad.

Huge crowds have gathered in the eastern holy city of Mashhad as Iran prepares to bury its slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The burial in Khamenei’s hometown on Thursday follows a week of mass funeral processions, rallies and mourning ceremonies held across Iran, including a day dedicated to neighbouring Iraq.

There were marathon ceremonies to project strength and unity amid the US-Israel war on Iran, which began with strikes by the two countries on Tehran that killed Khamenei and several of his relatives on February 28.

Despite a promised pause in US attacks, Khamenei’s burial ceremony comes after the US and Iran traded attacks for a second day.

After massive processions in Iraq’s holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, Khamenei’s remains arrived on Thursday at Mashhad international airport, footage shared by the official news agency IRNA showed.

Iraq’s paramilitary group Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), or Hashd al-Shaabi, said on Wednesday more than 2.3 million people took part in Khamenei’s funeral procession in Najaf alone.

Khamenei’s remains, along with those of four family members killed alongside him, were also paraded through Tehran and the Shia clerical centre of Qom.

The Tasnim news agency and the broadcaster Press TV reported that millions of mourners attended the funeral procession in Tehran, with Iranian officials describing the event as the “largest public gathering in the country’s modern history”.

Crowds marched through Mashhad on Thursday morning, waving Iranian flags, photographs of Khamenei and placards with revolutionary slogans.

The mourners also chanted slogans demanding vengeance against US President Donald Trump for his role in the assassination.

“I swear by the blood of the supreme leader, Trump, we will kill you,” they shouted, with women holding up placards reading “Kill Trump”.

The incumbent supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has been notably absent from the processions. He has not yet appeared in public since taking over days after his father’s assassination.

Officials have said he was wounded in the air strikes that killed his father, but the severity of his injuries remains unclear.

Iranian state television reported that Khamenei’s burial ceremony in Mashhad would be pushed to 2:30pm local time (11:00 GMT) as larger-than-expected crowds had delayed the funeral processions in Iraq.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas said Iranian officials had confirmed that the overnight US attacks on the Tehran-Mashhad railway line, which have put it out of service, had not delayed the burial ceremony.

Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, head of the late leader’s office, said Khamenei had requested to be buried in Mashhad, near the shrine of Imam Reza, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.

The 21-year-old man shot and killed after opening fire on U.S. Secret Service agents near the White House was a Maryland resident, according to online records.

Following Saturday’s shootout, the Associated Press identified the suspect as Nasire Best. According to virtual records, Best lived in the Prince George’s County suburb of Glenarden with his family.

The shooting occurred near a White House security checkpoint shortly after 6 p.m., according to a social media post from the Secret Service, which alleged that Best “pulled a weapon from his bag and began firing.”

Secret Service Uniformed Division officers returned fire, striking Best, who was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later, the post said. The Secret Service said no officers were injured, but a bystander was struck by gunfire and remained in serious but stable condition Sunday, according to the Associated Press.

The Secret Service said the bystander, who has not been identified, suffered a gunshot wound described as not life-threatening, the AP reported. It was not clear how the person was shot.

The Secret Service post also noted that President Trump was in the White House during the incident and was not harmed.

A person listed as having the same name as Best has three failure-to-pay rent cases for a dwelling in the Foundry by the Park Apartments in Dundalk, Md., from as recent as November. The Baltimore Sun could not confirm whether the cases are linked to the person killed Saturday.

The AP reported that Best was identified as the suspect by a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to discuss the investigation.

The AP noted that court documents indicated that Best was arrested in July 2025 after he attempted to enter a White House checkpoint without authorization. It wrote that the court records said Best did not heed officers’ commands to stop, “claimed he was Jesus Christ” and told officers he wanted to be arrested.

The court issued Best a “pretrial stay away order,” which typically requires defendants not to go near a person or area before a trail, the AP reported. In August, a bench warrant was issued against Best after a notice of “noncompliance.” He did not appear for a subsequent hearing, the AP reported.

The shooting remains under investigation, and additional information will be release as it becomes available, according to the Secret Service.

Saturday’s shooting was the third time in the last month that shots were fired near the president, including at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner in late April and near the Washington Monument earlier this month.

Hubbard writes for the Baltimore Sun. This story was distributed by the Associated Press via Tribune News Service.

ATLANTA — An Atlanta man has been charged in a string of attacks over a matter of hours that left two women dead and a man in critical condition, drawing the Trump administration’s attention after one of the victims was identified as a Department of Homeland Security employee who was walking her dog.

The killing of the Homeland Security worker, Lauren Bullis, and shootings of the two other victims on Monday led Homeland Secretary Markwayne Mullin to issue a statement raising concerns that the 26-year-old defendant, U.K.-native Olaolukitan Adon Abel, was granted U.S. citizenship in 2022, when Democrat Joe Biden was president.

“These acts of pure evil have devastated our Department and my prayers are with the families of the victims,” Mullin wrote in a statement posted on social media, cataloging a litany of the defendant’s previous alleged crimes but not specifying whether they happened before he was granted citizenship.

Authorities have said they believe at least one of the victims, the man who was wounded, was targeted at random. They said they were still looking into whether the other two victims were also picked randomly.

A morning of violence

The first victim was found with multiple gunshot wounds near a restaurant in the Decatur area around 1 a.m. Monday. She was taken to a hospital but died, DeKalb County Police Chief Gregory Padrick said at a news conference. Police have not publicly identified her.

About an hour later in Brookhaven, another Atlanta suburb less than 15 miles northwest of the first attack, a 49-year-old homeless man who was sleeping outside a grocery store was shot multiple times, city Police Chief Brandon Gurley said. The man, whose name hasn’t been released, remains hospitalized in critical condition.

“It is apparent to us that it was a completely random attack on a member of our unhoused community,” Gurley said.

Just before 7 a.m. and more than 10 miles away in the suburb of Panthersville, officers responding to a call found a woman with gunshot and stab wounds, Padrick said. The woman, Bullis, died at the scene. Investigators in Brookhaven determined that the three attacks were connected, Gurley said.

Adon Abel was taken into custody later Monday during a traffic stop in Troup County, which borders Alabama. He is charged with two counts of malice murder, aggravated assault and firearms counts, court records show. He waived an initial court appearance Tuesday. Court records don’t list an attorney who might speak on his behalf.

Reached by phone Wednesday, Toyin Adon Abel Jr. said he didn’t want to talk about his brother. But he expressed sympathy for the victims: “I feel terrible for the victims, their families and their connections. It’s a horrible thing,” he said.

Remembered for her warmth and compassion

Bullis served in multiple roles at Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, including as an auditor in the Office of Audits and as a team leader in the Office of Innovation, the department posted on social media, saying she brought “warmth, kindness, and a genuine sense of care to her colleagues each day.”

In a statement, Bullis’ family remembered her as “selfless, kind and compassionate.”

“She deeply loved her family and found joy in running, reading and traveling,” the family said. “Her warmth and generosity touched everyone surrounding her.”

Fellow Homeland Security auditor Ashley Toillion of Denver said she met Bullis at a work conference last year. The two became fast friends as they bonded over running and quickly made plans for Bullis join Toillion in a race at Walt Disney World.

“You couldn’t meet her and not be her friend,” Toillion said, choking back tears. “She was just the nicest, sweetest, most encouraging person I’ve ever met.”

Mullin, who took over Homeland Security last month after Kristi Noem was fired, said in his statement that Olaolukitan Adon Abel has a criminal record that includes a sexual battery conviction, though he didn’t say which year he was convicted. Online court records show that someone listed as Adon Olaolukitan, who has the same birth date as Adon Abel, pleaded guilty in June in Chatham County, Ga., to four misdemeanor counts of sexual battery.

In his statement, Mullin noted that since President Trump took office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which Homeland Security oversees, has worked to ensure that people with criminal histories don’t attain citizenship. But the U.S. has long barred people convicted of most violent felonies from becoming citizens, and it wasn’t immediately clear whether Adon Abel — or Adon Olaolukitan, if it’s the same person — had a criminal record that predated him becoming a citizen in 2022.

In response to a request for further details about the case and the defendant’s criminal history, Homeland Security referred the Associated Press to its post about Bullis and her death.

Brumfield and Rico write for the Associated Press. Brumfield reported from Cockeysville, Md. AP writer Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.