Iran Obit Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
FILE - In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks under a portrait of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, in a ceremony meeting a group of officials, in Tehran, Iran, March 8, 2025.
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Iranian state media have confirmed the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a major attack by Israel and the United States. The reports early Sunday threw the future of the Islamic Republic into doubt and raised the risk of regional instability. President Donald Trump announced the death hours earlier, saying it gave Iranians their “greatest chance” to “take back” their country. State television and the state-run IRNA news agency did not report a cause of death for the 86-year-old. The attack opened a stunning new chapter in U.S. intervention in Iran, carried the potential for retaliatory violence and a wider war, and represented a startling flex of military might.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who led the Islamic Republic since 1989, is dead at 86
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who assembled theocratic power in Iran over the decades as its supreme leader and sought to turn it into a regional powerhouse, bringing it into confrontation with Israel and the United States over its nuclear program while crushing democracy protesters at home, has died. He was 86. Iranian state media reported the death early Sunday, after a major attack launched by Israel and the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump said hours earlier that Khamenei had been killed in the joint operation. Khamenei dramatically remolded the Islamic Republic since he took the reins after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989.
