Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has been killed, Iranian state media confirmed early on Sunday, marking a dramatic escalation in a US-Israeli military campaign launched a day earlier and aimed at regime change.
Khamenei had not been seen or heard from since the strikes began, and satellite imagery indicated that his heavily fortified compound sustained extensive damage during the initial wave of attacks on Saturday.
The confirmation followed an announcement by former US president Donald Trump, who said Khamenei had been killed in a post on Truth Social. Khamenei had ruled Iran as supreme leader since 1989.
“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Trump wrote. “He 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 the military operation, which began early Saturday with missile strikes and air attacks, was intended to bring about regime change in Iran.
“This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country,” he wrote.
“We are hearing that many of their IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], Military, and other Security and Police Forces, no longer want to fight, and are looking for Immunity from us.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier said there were “many signs” that Khamenei was “no longer alive”, while Israeli officials told media outlets that his body had been recovered.
Iranian media reported on Sunday that Khamenei’s daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter were also killed in Saturday’s strikes.
The semi-official Fars news agency, which has links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said: “After establishing contact with informed sources in the supreme leader’s household, the news of the martyrdom of the daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter of the revolutionary leader has unfortunately been confirmed.”
Early on Sunday, Israel’s military said it had launched a further wave of strikes targeting Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure and air defence systems. US Central Command said it was “now delivering swift and decisive action as directed”.
The death of Iran’s supreme leader represents a major early success in the joint US-Israeli operation, which began with coordinated air attacks across the country and has plunged the Middle East into a new regional conflict with no clear timeline or outcome.
Khamenei wielded political authority unmatched by any other Iranian political, military or religious figure.
Under Iran’s constitution, the Assembly of Experts is required to convene to appoint a new supreme leader, although analysts say the ultraconservative IRGC may be well positioned to consolidate power during the transition.
State media reported that President Masoud Pezeshkian, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, and another senior official would oversee the transitional period following Khamenei’s death.
Iran also confirmed on Sunday that the head of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Pakpour, along with another senior security adviser, was killed in the attacks.
Netanyahu said Israeli strikes had also killed “several leaders” involved in Iran’s nuclear programme, adding that attacks on sites linked to the programme would continue in the coming days.
In an earlier video address, Trump said the operation would remove a security threat to the United States and allow Iranians to “rise up” against their leaders. In a separate address, Netanyahu urged Iranians to “flood the streets and finish the job”.
Iranian media said at least 201 people were killed and 747 injured in the initial US-Israeli strikes, including more than 80 children at a school.
Iranian officials said the attacks were not unexpected and warned the consequences would “be long-lasting and extensive”, adding that “all scenarios were on the table including ones that were not previously considered”.
The Revolutionary Guards threatened retaliation against all US bases and interests in the region, saying Iran’s response would continue until “the enemy is decisively defeated”.
In response, Iran launched missile and drone attacks targeting US military installations, including the headquarters of the US navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, as well as Israeli residential areas and locations in other Gulf states, including the Fairmont hotel in Dubai and a high-rise building in Bahrain.
US Central Command said it had “successfully defended against” hundreds of incoming missiles and drones and reported no American casualties.
A senior Trump administration official said the decision to strike Iran was driven by what the US viewed as an “intolerable” threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missile programme, as well as intelligence suggesting Tehran was considering a pre-emptive strike.
“The threat from Iran is ultimately their ambition to acquire nuclear weapons,” the official said.
“In the short term, however, it is Iran’s conventional weapons — particularly its missile capabilities in the southern belt — that pose a threat to the United States and its allies in the region,” adding that the US had proven “quite effective” at targeting Iranian launch systems.
“The president decided he was not going to sit back and allow American forces in the region to absorb attacks from conventional missiles,” the official said.
At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Saturday, the United States and Israel clashed diplomatically with Iran, with US ambassador Mike Waltz insisting the military action was lawful.
“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” he told the council. “That principle is not a matter of politics. It’s a matter of global security.”
Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, accused the US and Israel of killing and injuring hundreds of civilians, calling the strikes a war crime and a crime against humanity.
UN secretary general António Guterres urged an immediate halt to the violence and a return to negotiations.
“The alternative,” he warned, “is a potential wider conflict with grave consequences for civilians and regional stability.”
