Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s hardline supreme leader who ruled the country for almost four decades, was killed in Saturday’s joint US-Israeli strikes, Iranian state media confirmed Sunday, prompting celebration among Iranians who opposed his rule and fury from pro-regime loyalists. An Iranian TV broadcaster broke down in tears as he confirmed Khamenei had reached “martyrdom” in a strike that Fars News Agency said hit his compound in Tehran as 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 beyond appears likely to plunge the Islamic Republic into the most serious crisis since its establishment, with no clear leader to take his place. One of Iran’s most powerful figures, Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, signalled Iran’s defiance on Sunday, vowing to “stab” America in the heart in retaliation.

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How did he die?

Satellite images from Airbus showed black smoke rising from the supreme leader’s compound in the capital, Tehran, on Saturday. The images appeared to show that several buildings in the compound had been severely damaged by strikes.

Initially, Iran’s Foreign Ministry had insisted that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was “safe and sound”, even as his death was announced by both US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“There are many signs” that Iran’s supreme leader is “no longer with us”, Netanyahu had said Saturday evening, without elaborating.

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Two Israeli sources told CNN that the strikes targeted senior figures, including Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian, and the armed forces’ chief of staff Abdolrahim Mousavi.

Trump said one of the aims of the joint US-Israeli attack was regime change, and he called on the Iranian people to rise up against the government.

However, it was unclear whether such a change would result from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei death, which appeared likely to usher in hard-line rule by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, experts said.

What led to this?

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei death comes at a time when Iran is arguably at its weakest since he took power in 1989. Decades of Western sanctions had already left the country isolated and economically battered before US and Israeli strikes in June 2025 dealt his rule a severe blow.

Just six months later, protests that began over economic grievances quickly turned political, spreading across all 31 of the country’s provinces within weeks. The regime responded with a brutal crackdown, killing thousands of protesters and prompting a global outcry, including a threat of intervention from the Trump administration.

That intervention came on Saturday, when Trump said the US military was undertaking a “massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”

Who could replace Ayatollah Ali 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 soon be in place.

Larijani said Iran had assured leaders in the region that it was not after war with them but would continue to target American bases in Middle Eastern countries.

“It must be made clear once and for all that the Americans cannot bully the Iranian nation,” he said.

According to Iran’s constitution, an interim three-member council — consisting of the president, the head of the judiciary and a jurist of the country’s Guardian Council — would be tasked with carrying out the duties of the leader until an Assembly of Experts appointed a new supreme leader, according to the Middle East Institute.

Who could lead Iran next remains a mystery, even to those who have removed him. In January, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that “no one knows” who would take over if Khamenei was removed.

Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, said any attempt to appoint a successor to Khamenei “is doomed to fail from the outset”.

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How are Iranians reacting?

Cheering could be heard in Tehran as news spread about Khamenei’s demise, but as morning broke on Sunday, thousands of people gathered in the capital to wave flags and chant “Death to America.”

For protesters who fought for regime change in protests across the country this January, prompting a brutal crackdown, Khamenei needed to go.

The regime employed unprecedented levels of violence, with officials framing the demonstrations as a continuation of an Israeli-American conspiracy against the Islamic Republic.

The protests were the biggest since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the religious police in 2022.

In one video obtained by CNN from an eyewitness in Tehran on Saturday as reports of Khamenei’s death circulated, the voices of two women can be heard chanting, “Death to the Islamic Republic” and “Long Live the Shah”, in Farsi, before cheers and whistles erupt.

In a similar video, cheers are heard echoing across a residential neighbourhood in the city. In cities around the world, members of the Iranian community took to the streets to celebrate a new era in Iran.

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How could this impact the wider Middle East?

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei death has the potential to trigger the greatest shift in regional dynamics since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, after which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a sweeping campaign to eliminate actors hostile to his country across the Middle East — including Iran and its regional proxies.

It’s the second time in less than a century that the United States has acted to remove an Iranian leader from power. In 1953, Mohammad Mossadegh, a secular, democratically elected prime minister, was overthrown in an Iranian army coup backed by the CIA and British intelligence after he nationalised the country’s oil industry.

That event restored Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the throne and, after the monarch was deposed in the 1979 Islamic revolution, played a central role in the Islamic Republic’s anti-US narrative. It is regularly cited by Khamenei as a symbol of US imperialism and the reason for his distrust of the West.

Iran is home to a diverse population of more than 90 million, including Persians, Azeris, Arabs, Baloch and Kurds. Under Khamenei’s decades-long rule, the Islamic Republic largely managed to contain civil and ethnic unrest.

But with no 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.

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