By Kevin Akor
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (chatnewstv.com) — Iranian state media on Sunday confirmed that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed at his office during joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, ending more than three decades of rule and plunging Iran into political uncertainty amid a widening regional conflict.
Authorities announced a 40-day national mourning period for the 86-year-old cleric, who had led the Islamic Republic since 1989. Earlier reports by Iran’s Tasnim and Mehr news agencies had said Khamenei remained “steadfast and firm in commanding the field” before officials confirmed his death Sunday.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post that Khamenei was killed in coordinated strikes that began early Saturday.
“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 wrote. “This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier cited “growing signs” that Khamenei was dead, while Reuters reported that an Israeli official said the body had been located.
Khamenei succeeded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, and wielded ultimate authority over Iran’s government, armed forces and judiciary. His assassination raises immediate questions over succession and command during an escalating confrontation with Israel and the United States.
Barbara Slavin of the Stimson Center said Iran likely has contingency plans. “There will probably be a council that will be set up to run the country. It may already have been running the country, as far as we know,” she told Al Jazeera.
Saturday’s strikes targeted sites across 24 Iranian provinces and killed at least 201 people, according to Iranian media citing the Red Crescent. Among the dead were more than 100 people reported killed in Israeli strikes on two schools, including the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in the southern city of Minab.
Netanyahu said Israel had eliminated “commanders in the Revolutionary Guard and senior officials in the nuclear programme,” adding, “And we will continue.” Trump signaled further action, saying “heavy and pinpoint bombing” would go on “uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said additional waves of retaliatory strikes against U.S. and Israeli positions were underway Saturday night, according to Iran’s state news agency IRNA. Iranian counterattacks triggered air-defense responses in several Gulf states hosting U.S. forces, including Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
At the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of uncontrolled escalation. “Military action carries the risk of igniting a chain of events that no one can control in the most volatile region of the world,” he told an emergency Security Council meeting. “I call for de-escalation and an immediate cessation of hostilities.”
Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, said the United States and Israel had launched “an unprovoked and premeditated aggression” against civilian areas, calling it “a war crime, and a crime against humanity.”
U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz defended the strikes as 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.”
China’s envoy Fu Cong and Russia’s ambassador Vassily Nebenzia also condemned the strikes and urged an immediate halt to hostilities.
