Israel said it launched a broad wave of attacks on central Tehran on Sunday and was seeking to dominate the skies over the capital, after its air force killed Iran’s supreme leader in a large-scale attack that raised fears of growing instability in the Middle East.
Throughout the day, Israel’s air force carried out strikes to open the “road to Tehran,” and the Israeli military claimed that most air defense systems in western and central Iran had been dismantled.
Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters that many targets remained, including military-industrial production sites. “We have the resources and targets to continue as long as necessary,” he said.
Everything you need to know to protect your wallet
LAND FORCES ARE NOT CONSIDERED, ISRAEL SAYS
Asked whether Israel was considering sending ground forces to Iran, Shoshani said it was not being considered, although US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had urged the Iranians to seize a rare opportunity to overthrow their leaders.
Hours after the US and Israel said an airstrike killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the military campaign to overthrow the Islamic Republic’s government, Iranian state media confirmed the 86-year-old leader’s death.
Khamenei, who turned Iran into a powerful anti-American force and spread his influence across the Middle East during his 36-year iron-fisted rule, was working in his office at the time of Saturday’s attack, state media reported. The attack also killed his daughter, grandson, daughter-in-law and son-in-law.
Continues after advertising
Russian President Vladimir Putin, a close ally of Tehran, said in a note to his Iranian counterpart that the death of Khamenei and members of his family was a “cynical” murder that violated all norms of human morality and international law.
Experts said that while the death of Khamenei and other Iranian leaders would represent a major blow to the country, it would not necessarily mean the end of Iran’s entrenched clerical regime or the rule of the Revolutionary Guard elite over the population.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Sunday that Khamenei’s death was “a decisive moment in Iran’s history.”
“What comes next is uncertain. But now there is a path open to a different Iran, an Iran that its people can have more freedom to shape,” Kallas said on the X social media platform.
Under Iran’s Constitution, the supreme leader is appointed by the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member clerical body that oversees and, in theory, can remove that person.
This high-ranking official holds supreme power in Iran, serving as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and deciding the direction of foreign policy, largely defined by confrontation with the United States and Israel.
Continues after advertising
Ayatollah Alireza Arafi was appointed on Sunday as a legal member of Iran’s Leadership Council, a body tasked with fulfilling the role of supreme leader until the Assembly of Experts elects a new leader, ISNA news agency reported.
A cleric member of the Guardian Council, Arafi will sit on the temporary Leadership Council alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian and Supreme Court Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei.
RECOVER COMMON SENSE, SAYS EMIRATED ADVISOR
Two American sources and a US official familiar with the matter said Israel and the US timed their attack on Saturday to coincide with a meeting Khamenei was holding with his top aides.
Continues after advertising
Insider sources in Iran said the ruling establishment would immediately seek to name a successor to Khamenei in order to signal stability and continuity.
In another blow to the Iranian leadership, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Abdolrahim Mousavi, was killed in the attacks, Iran TV reported.
After Iran retaliated with airstrikes around the Gulf, Anwar Gargash, an adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates, a U.S. ally and oil power, urged Tehran to “come to its senses,” saying the war is not with Iran’s Arab neighbors in the Gulf. So far, the UAE has been most affected by Iran’s retaliation.
Continues after advertising
Trump warned on Sunday that the US would attack Iran “with force never seen before” if it retaliated after the strikes.
“Iran just declared that they are going to strike very hard today, harder than ever before,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
He added: “THEY BETTER NOT DO THIS, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL ATTACK THEM WITH A FORCE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!”
Continues after advertising
IRAN PROMISES “TERRIBLE BLOWS”
In comments directed at Trump and his close ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said: “We will strike you with blows so terrifying that you yourselves will be driven to beg.”
“I say to Trump and Netanyahu and their agents and representatives, I repeat, I say to these two filthy criminals and all of their agents: you have crossed our red line and you must pay the price for it.”
Oman’s maritime security center said the Palau-flagged oil tanker Skylight was attacked about five nautical miles off Musandam in Oman. Four people were injured and the entire crew of 20 was evacuated.
Khamenei, who thwarted the ambitions of several moderate elected presidents over decades, had a following among Shiites outside Iran, in countries such as Iraq and Pakistan, which have the largest Shiite populations after Iran.
Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, expressed his condolences over Khamenei’s death and urged Iranians to maintain unity in the face of the attacks.
UNIT IN PAKISTAN AND IRAQ
Pakistani police clashed on Sunday with protesters who stormed the outer wall of the US consulate in Karachi, leaving nine people dead, following news of US and Israeli attacks on Iran that killed Khamenei.
In Iraq, police fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse hundreds of pro-Iranian protesters who had gathered outside the Green Zone in the capital Baghdad, where the US Embassy is located.
Global air travel remained heavily disrupted as ongoing airstrikes kept major Middle Eastern airports, including Dubai — the world’s busiest international hub — closed in one of the biggest aviation disruptions in recent years.
Several explosions were heard for the second day in a row in the regional commercial hub of Dubai and over the Qatari capital Doha, according to witnesses, after Iran launched retaliatory strikes against Gulf states.
Clouds of white smoke from intercepted missiles were seen in the sky over Dubai, while clouds of dark smoke rose over the port of Jebel Ali, one of the busiest in the Middle East.
Two people were injured when shrapnel fell from drones following an air defense intercept over two houses in Dubai, one of several Gulf Arab cities that pride themselves on their stability.
Iran, which had said it would attack American bases if attacked, struck a series of other targets, keeping the important oil-producing Gulf on alert.
Trump said the airstrikes were aimed at ending a decades-old threat from Iran and ensuring it could not develop a nuclear weapon. He also sought to justify a risky move that appeared to contradict his stated opposition to American involvement in complex conflicts abroad.
LEADERS ALREADY FACE PRESSURE ON SEVERAL FRONTS
“This is not just justice for the people of Iran, but for all the great Americans and people from many countries around the world who were killed or maimed by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty thugs,” Trump wrote in Truth Social.
Trump and Netanyahu told Iranians to seize a rare opportunity to overthrow their clerical leaders.
Trump evoked the storming of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, when Iranian student activists, in coordination with radical clerics, held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, demanding the extradition of the deposed shah from the United States.
Iran’s leadership was already under pressure from an economy devastated by sanctions, protesters who were willing to return to the streets despite a violent crackdown and regional representatives severely weakened by Israeli strikes.
