Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s hardline supreme leader who ruled the country for almost four decades, was killed in joint attacks between the United States and Israel on Saturday (28), Iranian state media confirmed this Sunday, sparking celebration among Iranians who opposed his government and fury among the regime’s supporters.
An Iranian TV presenter even cried as he confirmed that Khamenei had achieved “martyrdom” in an attack that, according to the Fars news agency, hit his compound in Tehran while he was “carrying out his duties”.
The death of the cleric who repressed millions as he sought to exert Iran’s influence in the Middle East and elsewhere is likely to plunge the Islamic Republic into the most serious crisis since its founding, with no clear leader to take his place.
One of the most powerful figures in Iran, Ali Larijanisecretary of the Supreme National Security Council, signaled the Iranian defiance on Sunday, vowing to “stab” the United States in the heart in retaliation.
Here’s what we know:
How did he die?
leaving the supreme leader’s compound in the capital, Tehran, on Saturday. The images appeared to indicate that several buildings in the complex had been hit by attacks.
Initially, Iran’s Foreign Ministry insisted that Khamenei was “safe and well”, even after the announcement of his death by both United States President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“There are many signs” that this is the case, Netanyahu said on Saturday night, without giving further details.
Two Israeli sources told CNN that the attacks targeted high-profile figures, including Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Abdolrahim Mousavi.
Trump stated that one of the goals of the joint US-Israeli attack was and called on the Iranian people to rise up against the government.
However, it was unclear whether such a change would result from Khamenei’s death, which would likely usher in a hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps government, experts said.
What led to this?
Khamenei’s death comes at a time when Iran is arguably at its worst since he took power in 1989. Decades of Western sanctions had already left the country isolated and economically devastated before the attacks by the United States and Israel in June 2025, which dealt a severe blow to its government.
Just six months later, protests that began over economic grievances quickly turned political, spreading to all of the country’s 31 provinces within weeks. The regime responded with a brutal crackdown, sparking a wave of global outrage, including a threat of intervention from the Trump administration.
That intervention came on Saturday, when Trump said the U.S. military was carrying out a “massive, ongoing operation to stop this radical and evil dictatorship from threatening the United States and our core national security interests.”
Who could replace Khamenei?
Larijani, who has been a key adviser to Khamenei, said a temporary leadership structure, comprising the president and the head of the judiciary, would be implemented soon.
Larijani said Iran has assured the region’s leaders that it does not seek war with them, but that it will continue to attack American bases in Middle Eastern countries.
“We must make it clear once and for all that the Americans cannot intimidate the Iranian nation,” he said.
According to the Constitution of Iran, a three-member interim board — made up of the president, the head of the judiciary and a jurist from the country’s Guardian Council — would be tasked with carrying out the functions of the leader until an Assembly of Experts appoints a new supreme leader, according to the Middle East Institute.
even for those who deposed him. In January, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that “no one knows” who would take power if Khamenei were deposed.
the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran, said that any attempt to name a successor to Khamenei “is doomed to failure from the beginning.”
How are Iranians reacting?
In Tehran, they were heard, but at dawn on Sunday, thousands of people gathered in the capital to wave flags and shout “Death to America”.
For protesters who fought for regime change in protests across the country in January, prompting a brutal crackdown, Khamenei needed to go.
The regime employed unprecedented levels of violence, with authorities framing the demonstrations as a continuation of an Israeli-American conspiracy against the Islamic Republic.
The protests were the largest since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in religious police custody in 2022.
In a video obtained by CNN from an eyewitness in Tehran on Saturday, as news of Khamenei’s death was circulating, the voices of two women can be heard chanting “Death to the Islamic Republic” and “Long live the shah” in Farsi, before applause and whistling erupted.
In a similar video, it was possible to hear celebrations in a residential neighborhood in the city. Elsewhere around the world, members of the Iranian community took to the streets to celebrate a new era in Iran.
What impact could this have on the Middle East in general?
Khamenei’s death has the potential to trigger the biggest shift in regional dynamics since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, after which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a broad campaign to eliminate actors hostile to his country across the Middle East — including Iran and its regional allies.
This is the second time in less than a century that the United States has moved to depose an Iranian leader. In 1953, Mohammad Mossadegh, a secular and democratically elected prime minister, was deposed in an Iranian military coup supported by the CIA and British intelligence, after nationalizing the country’s oil industry.
This event restored Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the throne and, following the monarch’s deposition in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, played a central role in the Islamic Republic’s anti-US narrative. Khamenei regularly cited him as a symbol of American imperialism and the reason for his distrust of the West.
Iran is home to a diverse population of more than 90 million people, including Persians, Azeris, Arabs, Baloch and Kurds. Under Khamenei’s decades-long rule, the Islamic Republic has largely managed to contain civil and ethnic unrest.
But without a clear successor, his death would raise serious concerns about the stability of Iran, as well as the wider region, with potential consequences for the global economy.
