Iran Confirms Death of Supreme Leader Khamenei Following Joint US-Israel Airstrike

Following a joint US-Israel airstrike on the residence of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday, US President Donald Trump announced Khamenei's death. Trump stated that Khamenei and other Iranian officials could not escape the reach of American intelligence and advanced tracking systems.

Iran has also confirmed the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the ongoing US and Israeli attacks on the country. According to Iranian media, Khamenei's daughter, son-in-law, and grandson were also killed in the attack.

Khamenei assumed leadership as the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1989, following the passing of the influential Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the Islamic Revolution a decade earlier.

Khamenei was the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the Pahlavi monarchy, and he shaped the military and paramilitary apparatus. This helped not only to protect Iran from its enemies but also to expand Iranian influence far beyond its borders.

Before becoming Supreme Leader, he led Iran as President during the bloody war with Iraq in the 1980s. According to analysts, the sense of isolation felt by Iranians when Western countries supported Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and that devastating war, deepened Khamenei's distrust of the entire West, especially the United States.

This sentiment formed the basis of his decades-long rule and established the idea that Iran must remain in a constant state of defense against external and internal threats.

Vali Nasr, an expert on Iranian affairs and author of Iran's Grand Strategy: A Political History, says, 'People consider Iran a theocracy because Khamenei wore a turban and the language of the state was the language of religion. But in reality, he was a wartime president emerging from war, whose belief was that Iran was at risk and needed security. America is Iran's enemy, and the Revolution, the Islamic Republic, and nationalism are not separate things, so they must be protected.'

Under this perspective, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) evolved from a paramilitary force into a powerful security, political, and economic institution, becoming the focal point for expanding Iran's influence across the Middle East. Khamenei promoted the 'Resistance Economy' aimed at increasing self-sufficiency to counter harsh Western sanctions. He always expressed skepticism towards dialogue with the West and strongly responded to critics who argued that focusing only on defense halted necessary reforms.

However, his rule faced serious tests over the years. Brutal suppression was meted out against protesters who took to the streets in 2009, alleging a fraudulent presidential election. Similarly, a hardline stance was adopted during the protests over women's rights in 2022.

Perhaps the biggest challenge to his rule came in January of this year when protests, initially sparked by economic hardship, escalated into a nationwide uprising. Many protesters directly called for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The harsh response from authorities led to the most violent clashes since the 1979 Revolution.

Critics viewed him as a leader too distant from the aspirations of the young population seeking reform and economic prosperity, preferring instead to remain engaged in a shadow war and isolation with the US and Israel.

'The Iranians had to pay a very high price for this extent of insistence on national independence. In the process, he lost the trust of the Iranian people because the people had stopped believing in the justification for this independence,' Nasr said.

• Education

Born in 1939 in Mashhad, a holy Shia city in northeastern Iran, Khamenei's father was a renowned Muslim cleric of Azerbaijani origin from neighboring Iraq. The family had previously lived in Tabriz in northwestern Iran before moving to Mashhad. In Mashhad, Khamenei's father led the Azerbaijani mosque.

Khamenei described his mother, Khadijeh Mirdamadi, as fond of the Quran and books, which sparked in him a love for literature and poetry and later supported him when he became involved in the movement against the Pahlavi dynasty's rule.

Khamenei began reading the Quran at the age of 4 and completed his primary education at the first Islamic school in Mashhad. He did not complete high school; instead, he began studying theology, gaining knowledge from his father and prominent Islamic scholars of the time, such as Sheikh Hashem Ghazvini. In the following years, he continued his studies at the renowned Shia centers for higher education in Najaf and Qom.

While in Qom, he became close to Ayatollah Khamenei and other famous Muslim scholars. Khamenei was very popular among young students at the time due to the rebellion against the Shah. Khamenei taught jurisprudence courses and public theology interpretation classes, which increased his reach among young students who were becoming disillusioned with the monarchy.

In 1953, after a coup designed by the British intelligence agency MI6 and the American CIA, the monarchy was fully restored to power in Iran. Through that coup, the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who sought to nationalize the Iranian oil industry, was overthrown.

As a political activist, Khamenei was repeatedly arrested by the Shah's secret police (SAVAK) and sentenced to exile in the remote southeastern city of Iranshahr. But he returned to participate in the 1978 protests, which ended the Pahlavi regime.

• Supreme Leader

After the fall of the monarchy, Khamenei became a key figure in establishing the new Iran. He briefly served as Minister of Defense in 1980 and as the supervisor of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after the Iran-Iraq War began. As an impassioned orator, he also secured the influential position of Tehran's Friday Prayer leader.

1981 proved to be a very significant year for Khamenei. He narrowly survived an assassination attempt by the opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), which left his right arm paralyzed. This group had launched an armed rebellion against the newly established Iranian theocracy after a dispute with Khomeini. In the same year, Khamenei became the President of Iran, the first cleric to hold this position.

Khomeini's death in 1989 was a 'turning point' for the Islamic Republic. Before his death, Khomeini had sidelined his long-time successor, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, after criticizing the mass execution of prisoners in 1988.

A council formed to amend the constitution appointed Khamenei as the Supreme Leader. To do this, the council had to relax the qualifications required to hold the country's highest office. Khamenei did not hold the title of Hojjatoleslam (a high-ranking Shia cleric title).

'I do not think I am worthy of this position; perhaps you and I know this. This will not be real leadership, only symbolic leadership,' Khamenei said at the time.

But his leadership was far from symbolic.

Ayatollah Khamenei's early tenure was defined by efforts to rebuild the country, which was devastated by the 8-year war with Iraq. More than one million people were killed in the conflict, and the economy was shattered. There was widespread anger among Iranians as the international community remained silent even when Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and civilians. As President, Khamenei frequently went to the front lines of the war, which helped him earn the loyalty of the IRGC and understand the realities of the war.

'He is a leader seasoned by the war with Iraq. Therefore, it shaped his domestic and foreign policy outlook. After becoming Supreme Leader, he focused on building military and paramilitary structures for siege and continuous resistance,' said Narges Bajoghli, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

But the atmosphere began to change in the 1990s. The country was in dire need of investment, and the revolutionary fervor had somewhat cooled. Some people, weary of war, wanted Iran to connect with the international community.

This sentiment led to the landslide victory of reformist Mohammad Khatami in the 1997 election. He advocated for improving relations with the West and dialogue between civilizations.

However, Khamenei's own suspicion and distrust of the West remained. He viewed the emergence of reformist voices from within the military and paramilitary apparatus as a threat to the status quo. According to Bajoghli, he then began building a stable voting bloc of loyal supporters against the reformists.

'Khamenei did not have the natural popular base that Khomeini had,' Bajoghli said. 'Therefore, he invested heavily in the paramilitary system to educate and train the younger generation so that they could rise later.'

This meant allowing the IRGC a free hand to build business networks dominating Iran's economy. Additionally, training programs for young members of the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer force, were intensified. Although a small segment of society, this group grew alongside Khamenei's policy of continuous resistance against the West and was given unlimited resources. Most importantly, according to Bajoghli, they were ready to fight and die.

These new ranks of the paramilitary force were deployed to suppress the nationwide protests that erupted following the controversial electoral victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a staunch opponent of the West, in 2009. By then, the new generation of Iranians born after 1979 had little interest in the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial narrative that inspired their parents' revolution.

The movement, considered the stiffest challenge to Khamenei's leadership at the time, was dubbed the Green Movement by the media. Millions of protesters took to the streets to protest the election results and support the defeated reformist candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Although protesters claimed fraud in declaring Ahmadinejad the winner, Khamenei upheld the result. According to Amnesty International, thousands were arrested and dozens killed.

The Iranian leadership accused Western countries of instigating unrest to overthrow the religious establishment. Ahmadinejad said, 'You (the West) must be held accountable for your actions. The Iranian nation will slap those with ill intentions so hard that they will forget the way back to their homes.'

• 'Neither Peace Nor War'

Khamenei was also a pragmatic leader. According to analysts, he believed the fight against the West should be waged with a different strategy: resisting but also negotiating when necessary.

In 2015, the country was crushed by international sanctions due to its nuclear program. To maintain internal stability and boost his legitimacy, Khamenei felt the need to ease economic pressure.

Therefore, he gave the green light to then-President Hassan Rouhani to negotiate with Western countries, including the US, leading to the 'Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action' agreement in 2015. This historic deal between Iran and world powers was designed to limit Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions.

Nasr said, 'That was a moment of pragmatism—sometimes you have to compromise to defend the state. Khamenei preferred a policy of neither peace nor war with the United States. His understanding was that America is Iran's natural adversary, so Iran must maintain its independence from the US.'

Viewed from this perspective, 'The nuclear deal was not a normalization of relations with the US, but merely a limited arms control agreement, similar to what the US did with the Soviet Union,' Nasr said.

But three years after the deal, President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement. As Washington began imposing new sanctions on Iran, Khamenei reverted to an aggressive posture. He rejected negotiations with the US and began gradually violating the agreement.

In the following years, Iran increased uranium enrichment to 60 percent. This is a level from which it takes very little time to reach the 90 percent level required for weaponization. Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes. In 2003, Khamenei issued a fatwa prohibiting the development, use, and storage of nuclear weapons.

As Western sanctions took their toll and inflation rose, protests erupted across Iran in 2019 after the government decided to raise petrol prices. According to Amnesty International, more than 100 people were killed in the violent crackdown by security forces on the protests. Khamenei called the protesters thugs and accused anti-revolutionaries and foreign enemies of instigating unrest.

In the presidential election held amidst internal turmoil and growing isolation, Ebrahim Raisi won. He was criticized due to his association with the mass executions in the late 1980s. That election saw the lowest voter turnout in Iran's history.

With a close ally like Raisi becoming president, Khamenei promoted the 'Resistance Economy' relying on Iran's internal capacity and attempted to pivot its trade eastward, but this approach yielded few concrete results.

In 2022, nationwide protests erupted following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody for allegedly violating the mandatory hijab law, which became another major challenge for Khamenei. The Ayatollah faced intense criticism as the person responsible for social restrictions and the brutal suppression of protests. According to Amnesty International, more than 500 people were killed in those demonstrations.

Again, Khamenei viewed this as a matter of national security. He accused Western and regional enemies of fomenting unrest, arguing that these protests were the result of foreign interference, not the death of Amini or the issue of wearing the hijab. He stated, 'This is about the independence, resistance, power, and strength of Islamic Iran. That is the issue.'

• The 'Axis of Resistance'

In Khamenei's view, maintaining forward defense beyond the country's borders was necessary to deter potential external attacks (especially from the US and Israel), requiring independence and strength.

This meant weaving a network of proxy relationships by providing arms, technology, and resources to allies outside Iran, known as the Axis of Resistance. This was Khamenei's most effective strategic project.

The main planner of this strategy was Qasem Soleimani, a staunch supporter of Khamenei and the commander of the IRGC's elite foreign operations wing, the Quds Force. The US assassinated Soleimani in 2020.

The main pillars of this alliance were Hezbollah in Lebanon, former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Hamas in Palestine, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and armed groups in Iraq.

However, this alliance began to fracture after the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel subsequently launched a genocidal war in Gaza, in which more than 70,000 people have been killed, and most areas have been reduced to rubble. Many top Hamas leaders were killed in the war.

Israel also attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon, killing many top leaders, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Then, in December 2024, rebel forces overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The route for Iran to supply arms to Hezbollah via Syria was also closed.

Taking advantage of the weakening of Iran's allies, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had long advocated for attacking Iran's nuclear program, seized the opportunity.

On June 13, 2025, the Israeli military attacked Iran, with information provided by the United States. Dozens of senior commanders and top nuclear scientists were killed, and many nuclear sites and civilian and military infrastructure were attacked. Although the US intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency separately assessed that Iran was not building nuclear weapons, Israel claimed the attack was to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons. This attack occurred while Tehran was negotiating with Washington on a deal regarding its nuclear program.

Iran responded by raining missiles on Tel Aviv. A full-scale war ensued for about two weeks, culminating after the US dropped 'bunker buster' bombs on three major nuclear centers.

Netanyahu threatened to kill Khamenei, while Trump demanded unconditional surrender.

But it had no effect. Khamenei retorted firmly, 'Wise people who understand Iran and its history never speak in a threatening tone to this nation because the Iranian nation does not surrender. And the Americans should know that any American military intervention will undoubtedly cause irreparable damage.'

For some, Khamenei's steadfastness after the 12-day war with Israel carried a different meaning. Iranians rejected Israel's call for rebellion against the Islamic Republic.

But this wave of nationalism did not last long.

Severe sanctions badly crippled the country's economy. Towards the end of December, protests that began due to a decline in currency value turned into a nationwide uprising demanding the end of Khamenei's rule. The most brutal crackdown in decades followed. Iranian officials stated that more than 3,000 were killed, but a human rights group in the US claimed the number was over 7,000.

After this upheaval, the country stood at a crossroads. In previous protests, the state could calm the situation by either offering some subsidies or easing social restrictions. But this time, it had very few options to solve the economic problem that was the main cause of the movement. Experts suggested that Iran would have to make tough deals to lift sanctions and improve the economy, or face further turmoil.

This led to a new round of talks between the US and Iran on limiting Tehran's nuclear activities in exchange for lifting sanctions. Despite claims of progress, several rounds of talks held in the United Arab Emirates and Geneva failed to reach any conclusion.

The US demanded that Iran completely dismantle its nuclear infrastructure, limit its ballistic missile stockpile, and cease supporting regional allies. While Tehran showed flexibility on limiting uranium enrichment for civilian purposes, it remained adamant on not compromising on missiles and its proxies.

Meanwhile, the US amassed its largest military arsenal in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

On February 28, Trump announced that the US had launched a major military operation in Iran. In his speech, the US President made it clear that the US desired a change of regime in Iran.

'The hour of your freedom has come,' Trump told the Iranian people at the end of his address on Saturday morning, 'After we finish our work, take your government into your own hands. It will be yours. This may be your only chance for generations.'

He stated that he was 'ready' to do what no previous US president had done.

Al Jazeera