Powerful general in Iran emerges from hiding as Tehran prepares for Khamenei's dayslong funeral

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A powerful general who leads Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard emerged from hiding as Tehran prepared Friday for the dayslong funeral for the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Photos published online by Iranian state media showed Gen. Ahmad Vahidi attending a meeting about the funeral of Khamenei, 86, then sitting alongside his casket as Iran's theocracy held a smaller service for him Thursday night near the supreme leader's former home in downtown Tehran.

Vahidi has become a major player in formulating Iran’s tough stance in negotiating a possible permanent end to the war with the United States, experts say. He is believed to be part of a small clique in direct contact with Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who remains in hiding after being reportedly wounded in the Feb. 28 Israeli strikes that killed his father, the elder Khamenei.

Vahidi himself hasn’t been seen publicly since Feb. 8, weeks before the Iran war began.

Video published by Iranian state media showed the mourning ceremony for Khamenei near the husseiniyah at his compound in Tehran. An Israeli airstrike in the war's first moments killed Khamenei and some of his family members. State media said Khamenei's body sat within a coffin on a stage, with red tulips lined up in front of it. What appeared to be paper butterflies hung from the ceiling in front of it.

The black-clad mourners, whom state media identified as coming from families of those who lost loved ones in the 12-day war in 2025 and the recent Iran war, threw scarves and other items for attendants to brush against the coffin, a common practice in Iran.

Later, state media showed images of Khamenei's casket draped by a red flag with white calligraphy reading "Ya Hussein,” a Shiite expression in remembrance of the 7th-century martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson. It had been flying over the Imam Hussein golden-domed shrine in Karbala, Iraq. The flag also traditionally symbolizes both the spilled blood of someone unjustly killed and a call for vengeance.

Beginning Saturday, Iran will hold a dayslong funeral for Khamenei, and his body will be transported to cities in both Iran and neighboring Iraq. The funeral will begin at the Grand Mosalla in Tehran, where authorities plan to shut down streets and daily life as mourners commemorate the life of Khamenei, who led Iran for decades with an iron fist while confronting the West.

Iran's Basij paramilitary forces set up a checkpoint at a square ahead of the funeral ceremonies of slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, shown at the billboard at rear, in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

The coffin of slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is carried into the Mosalla Grand Mosque ahead of his funeral ceremonies in Tehran, Iran, Friday, July 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

In this photo released by Iran's Supreme Leader's office, Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Gen. Ahmad Vahidi sits alongside Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei casket as it lies in a mourning hall adjacent to the Imam Khomeini Hussainiya within the Supreme Leader's compound before his funeral in Tehran, Iran, late Thursday, July 2, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

A portrait of slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and an Iranian flag are displayed in the window of a book store ahead of Khamenei's funeral ceremonies, in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

In this photo released by Iran's Supreme Leader's office, mourners react as they gather around the coffin of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as it lies in a mourning hall adjacent to the Imam Khomeini Hussainiya within the Supreme Leader's compound before his funeral in Tehran, Iran, late Thursday, July 2, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

In this photo released by Iran's Supreme Leader's office, mourners gather around the coffin of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as it lies in a mourning hall adjacent to the Imam Khomeini Hussainiya within the Supreme Leader's compound before his funeral in Tehran, Iran, late Thursday, July 2, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

In this photo released by Iran's Supreme Leader's office, mourners gather around the coffin of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as it lies in a mourning hall adjacent to the Imam Khomeini Hussainiya within the Supreme Leader's compound before his funeral in Tehran, Iran, late Thursday, July 2, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Keir Starmer formally apologized Thursday for the British state's role in separating tens of thousands of unmarried mothers from their babies, a practice that lasted for decades until the 1970s.

He said in Parliament that “we are deeply and profoundly sorry” for what he called a “stain on our history.”

An estimated 185,000 babies of unmarried mothers were adopted in England and Wales between 1949 and 1976. Campaigners have fought for years for acknowledgment that women were pressured, deceived and threatened into giving up their babies.

Starmer met Thursday with a group of campaigners, who watched from the public gallery of the House of Commons as he delivered the apology.

He said that women were “coerced, bullied or misled into feeling that they had no choice but to have their children taken away from them.

“Children grew up believing they were unwanted” and mothers were told “their babies would be better off without them,” he said.

“To each and every one of those affected, we say a deep and heartfelt sorry,” said Starmer, who is his final weeks as Britain’s leader.

Alongside the apology, he announced support for affected mothers and children, including better access to adoption records and mental health support.

Britain is one of several countries reckoning with the legacy of social norms, religious practices and government policies that heaped shame on unwed mothers, hid them away in institutions while pregnant and took their children to be adopted by married couples.

After Starmer spoke, several lawmakers in the House of Commons made emotional speeches about their own experiences.

Sarah Pochin of opposition party Reform UK choked back tears as she said that her mother “was pressurized into giving up a baby for adoption” in a process handled by the church.

“I only found out after her death — she carried her secret to her grave,” added Pochin, who said she managed to find and contact her brother after considerable effort.

Ann Keen, a former health minister whose baby was taken for adoption in 1966 when she was 17, said the apology was part of “being released from my shame.”

“We need this apology, because we have always been accused of giving up our babies, and we didn’t give them up,” she told the BBC. “We’ve now got the opportunity to really put this wrong right.”

In 2022, Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights said the British state should apologize for “the pain and suffering caused by public institutions and state employees that railroaded mothers into unwanted adoptions.”

The semiautonomous governments in Scotland and Wales issued apologies the following year, but the Conservative U.K. government at the time declined to follow suit, saying that “the state did not actively support these practices.”

But Starmer said forced adoptions were the result of “practices embedded within systems” across local government, religious institutions and the health and social care systems.

“The state bears responsibility for the systems it funded and legitimized which enabled these practices to occur,” he said.

The apology from Starmer’s Labour Party government comes two weeks after the Church of England said sorry for its role in forced adoptions.

Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally said that “we are profoundly sorry for the pain, trauma and stigma experienced — and still carried — by many people because of historical adoption practices in homes affiliated to the Church of England.”

The three decades after World War II have been labeled the “Baby Scoop Era” in the U.S., where more than 1.5 million infants were surrendered for adoption between 1945 and 1973. An untold number of their mothers were sent away to maternity homes before giving birth.

In 2013, Australia’s then-Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, delivered a landmark national apology for the country’s history of forced adoptions and the “lifelong legacy of pain and suffering” it had caused.

Ireland has been reckoning with the legacy of mother-and-baby homes run by the Catholic Church, in which tens of thousands of women were housed in often degrading conditions. An inquiry found in 2021 that 9,000 children had died in 18 mother-and-baby homes during the 20th century.

Prime Minister Micheál Martin apologized for the “profound and generational wrong” visited upon mothers and their babies who ended up in the institutions.

Campaigners arrive for a meeting with Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Downing Street, to discuss historical forced adoption, in London, Thursday July 2, 2026. (Isabel Infantes/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets with campaigners to discuss historical forced adoption, at Downing Street, in London, Thursday July 2, 2026. (Isabel Infantes/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, center, attends a meeting with campaigners to discuss historical forced adoption, at Downing Street, in London, Thursday July 2, 2026. (Isabel Infantes/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, center, attends a meeting with campaigners to discuss historical forced adoption, at Downing Street, in London, Thursday July 2, 2026. (Isabel Infantes/Pool Photo via AP)

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks to the media outside 10 Downing Street to announce his resignation in London, Monday, June 22, 2026.(AP Photo/Thomas Krych)