Iran confirms Khamenei killed after strikes as leaders scramble for succession

Iranian state television confirmed that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, an 86-year-old cleric, had been killed after a first wave of strikes that satellite images showed had caused significant damage to his compound. The announcement came hours after conflicting reports from foreign media and political leaders, plunging Tehran into an uncertain and potentially explosive moment.

Officials in Tehran initially said Khamenei had been taken to a safe place and state broadcasters later signalled he would speak on television, but no address materialised. In a televised statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there “are many signs” that the Supreme leader “is no longer.” A series of reports in Israeli and US media, citing unnamed officials, said they had what they described as convincing evidence of his death. Several hours after US President Donald Trump announced the news on his social media platform, Iranian state television confirmed Khamenei had been killed.

Those closest to Iran’s clerical leadership have been preparing for such an eventuality. Khamenei had instructed the Assembly of Experts, the body of some 88 senior clerics tasked with choosing a supreme leader, to be ready for every eventuality, and the New York Times has reported he had chosen “three senior clerics” as possible replacements if he were to be assassinated. There has been speculation for many years about potential successors, including his son Mojtaba.

“It is not just the supreme leader who was killed in this first day of air strikes and targeted attacks.” That assertion underscores reports that the strikes were broader and hit other senior figures, though names and numbers have not been released. Analysts warn that the claimed killing of the supreme leader will be a huge jolt to the Islamic Republic, which will try hard to show it has a plan in place and to convey that the succession will be seamless.

On the streets of Tehran the mood was raw and divided. Reporting from the capital, Lyse Doucet described rooftop and window chants of “God is greatest” and fireworks marking the 47th anniversary of the revolution. Yet amid the celebrations she also heard the anti-regime cry “death to the dictator” from safer indoor spaces, a dramatic echo of mass protests last month that were met, according to witnesses and local sources, with unprecedented lethal force and a heavy toll of civilian deaths.

The episode compounds a nation already under severe strain. Chronic economic distress, magnified by water and electricity shortages, decades of international sanctions, and long-standing charges of corruption and mismanagement, has left the Islamic Republic at what commentators call a crossroads confronting its most consequential tests since the revolution.

For regional capitals and global powers, the immediate questions are who ordered the strikes and how Iran’s security apparatus will respond. International law, diplomatic protocols, and the fragile balance of deterrence in the Gulf will come under strain if accusations and reprisals follow. Tehran’s most powerful clerics and commanders, officials say, had for some time been preparing for such a fateful moment and will now move to assert control, manage succession and project continuity to both domestic audiences and foreign states.

Reporting in Tehran is constrained. The correspondent on the ground is operating on condition that material not be used on the BBC’s Persian Service, a restriction officials say applies to all international media organisations working in Iran. Independent verification of many details remains incomplete, and further confirmation from official Iranian authorities about the extent of the strikes and other casualties is likely to determine the next phase of both domestic politics and regional diplomacy.