Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed in attack by US and Israel

Iranian state media have confirmed the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a major attack by Israel and the United States.

The reports early on Sunday threw the future of the Islamic Republic into doubt and raised the risk of regional instability.

President Donald Trump announced the death hours earlier, saying it gave Iranians their “greatest chance” to “take back” their country.

State media reported that the 86-year-old was killed in an airstrike targeting his compound in downtown Tehran. Satellite photos from Airbus showed that the site was heavily bombed.

His death at his office “showed that he consistently stood among the people and at the forefront of his responsibilities, confronting what officials call global arrogance,” state TV said.

“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Mr Trump wrote in a social media post.

He warned of “heavy and pinpoint bombing” that he said would continue throughout the week and even beyond, part of a lethal assault the US has justified as necessary to disable the country’s nuclear capabilities.

Iran, which responded to the strikes with its own counterassault, warned of retribution, with the cabinet saying that this “great crime will never go unanswered”. The paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened to launch its “most intense offensive operation” ever.

The attack opened a stunning new chapter in US intervention in Iran, carried the potential for retaliatory violence and a wider war, and represented a startling flex of military might for an American president who swept into office on an “America First” platform and vowed to keep out of “forever wars”.

The killing of Khamenei in the second Trump administration assault on Iran in eight months appeared certain to create a leadership vacuum given the absence of a known successor and because the 86-year-old supreme leader had final say on all major policies during his decades in power. He led Iran’s clerical establishment and the Revolutionary Guard, the two main centres of power in the governing theocracy.

As reports trickled out about the death, eyewitnesses in Tehran told the Associated Press that some residents were rejoicing, cheering from rooftops, blowing whistles and letting out ululations.

Citing unidentified sources, the semi-official Fars news agency, believed to be close to the Revolutionary Guard, reported that several relatives of Khamenei were also killed, including a daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and grandchild.

The joint US-Israel operation, which officials say was planned for months, took place on Saturday during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan and at the start of the Iranian workweek.

It followed stilted negotiations and warnings from Mr Trump, who last year trumpeted his administration’s success in incapacitating the country’s nuclear programme but nonetheless cast the latest round as necessary to head off its potential resurgence.

About 12 hours after the attacks began, the US military reported no US casualties and minimal damage at US bases despite “hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks”. It said targets in Iran included Revolutionary Guard command facilities, air defence systems, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields.

Israel, for its part, said it had killed the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the country’s defence minister, as well as the secretary of the Iranian Security Council, a close adviser to Khamenei.

Khamenei “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,” Mr Trump said.

“This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.”

An Iranian diplomat told the United Nations Security Council that hundreds of civilians were killed and wounded in the strikes. Iran retaliated by firing missiles and drones toward Israel and at US military bases in the region, and exchanges of fire continued into the night.

Some of the first strikes on Iran appeared to hit near the offices of Khamenei, the second leader of the Islamic Republic who succeeded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Israeli officials confirmed the death, followed by Mr Trump.

Democrats decried that Mr Trump had taken action without congressional authorisation. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the administration had briefed several Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress in advance.

Tensions have soared in recent weeks as the Trump administration built up the largest force of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades.

The president insisted he wanted a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program while the country struggled with growing dissent following nationwide protests.

In southern Iran, at least 115 people were reported killed when a girls’ school was struck, and dozens more were wounded, the local governor told Iranian state TV.

US Central Command spokesperson Captain Tim Hawkins said he was “aware of reports” that a girls’ school was struck and that officials were looking into them.

Flights across the Middle East were disrupted, and air defence fire thudded over Dubai, the United Arab Emirates’ commercial capital.

Shrapnel from an Iranian missile attack on the UAE killed one person, state media said.