Dubai, Mar 1: Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died following a major attack by Israel and the United States, Iranian state media confirmed early Sunday. President Donald Trump previously announced the death, saying it gave Iranians their “greatest chance” to “take back” their country.
Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news agency did not report a cause of death for the 86-year-old. The assassination put the future of the Islamic Republic in doubt and raised the risk of regional instability.
“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Trump wrote in a social media post. He warned of “heavy and pinpoint bombing” that he said would continue throughout the week and even beyond, part of a lethal assault the US has justified as necessary to disable the country’s nuclear capabilities.
The attack opened a stunning new chapter in US intervention in Iran, carried the potential for retaliatory violence and a wider war, and represented a startling flex of military might for an American president who swept into office on an “America First” platform and vowed to keep out of “forever wars.”
If confirmed, the killing of Khamenei in the second Trump administration assault on Iran in eight months appeared certain to create a leadership vacuum given the absence of a known successor and because the 86-year-old supreme leader had final say on all major policies during his decades in power. He led Iran’s clerical establishment and its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, the two main centers of power in the governing theocracy.
Iran, which responded to the strikes with its own counterassault, warned of retribution.
Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, said Saturday that Israel and America will “regret their actions.”
“The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will deliver an unforgettable lesson to the hellish international oppressors,” Larijani posted on X.
Strikes followed months of rising tensions
The joint US-Israel operation, which officials say was planned for months, took place Saturday during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan and at the start of the Iranian workweek. It followed stilted negotiations and warnings from Trump, who last year trumpeted his administration’s success in incapacitating the country’s nuclear program but nonetheless cast the latest round as necessary to head off its potential resurgence.
About 12 hours after the attacks began, the US military reported no US casualties and minimal damage at US bases despite “hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks.” It said targets in Iran included Revolutionary Guard command facilities, air defence systems, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields.
Israel, for its part, said it had killed the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the country’s defense minister, as well as the secretary of the Iranian Security Council, a close adviser to Khamenei.
Khamenei “was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do,” Trump said. “This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.”
An Iranian diplomat told the United Nations Security Council that hundreds of civilians were killed and wounded in the strikes. Iran retaliated by firing missiles and drones toward Israel and at US military bases in the region, and exchanges of fire continued into the night.
Some of the first strikes on Iran appeared to hit near the offices of Khamenei, the second leader of the Islamic Republic who succeeded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Israeli officials confirmed the death, followed by Trump.
Democrats decried that Trump had taken action without congressional authorization. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the administration had briefed several Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress in advance.
The strikes followed unsuccessful nuclear talks
Tensions have soared in recent weeks as the Trump administration built up the largest force of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades. The president insisted he wanted a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program while the country struggled with growing dissent following nationwide protests.
Though Trump had pronounced the Iranian nuclear program obliterated in strikes last year, the country was rebuilding infrastructure that it had lost, according to a senior US official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss Trump’s decision-making process. The official said intelligence showed that Iran had developed the capability to produce its own high-quality centrifuges, an important step in developing the highly enriched uranium needed for weapons.
Iran responded to the latest strikes by launching missiles and drones toward Israel and targeting US military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. The Israeli military said Iran fired dozens of missiles at Israel, with many intercepted. The Magen David Adom rescue service said Saturday night that a woman in the Tel Aviv area died after being wounded in an Iranian missile attack.
At least three explosions were heard Saturday evening near the Intelligence Ministry building in northern Tehran, witnesses said, adding that air defense systems had begun operating there. Israel’s military said it had begun new strikes against missile launchers and aerial defense systems in central Iran.
In southern Iran, at least 115 people were reported killed when a girls’ school was struck, and dozens more were wounded, the local governor told Iranian state TV. US Central Command spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins said he was “aware of reports” that a girls’ school was struck and that officials were looking into them.
Iran’s state news agency IRNA said at least 15 people were killed in the southwest, quoting the governor of the Lamerd region, Ali Alizadeh, as saying a sports hall, two residential areas and a hall near a school were hit.
Flights across the Middle East were disrupted, and air defense fire thudded over Dubai, the United Arab Emirates’ commercial capital. Shrapnel from an Iranian missile attack on the UAE capital killed one person, state media said.
