Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei killed, Israeli officials say

Iran’s Foreign Ministry, however, has continued to insist that Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian are “safe and sound.”

Khamenei, 86, had led Iran since 1989. He previously served as the president from 1981 to 1989. He was a close ally of Iran's first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the country's 1979 revolution that overthrew the government and founded Iran's Islamic Republic.

He is credited with creating and giving increasing power to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corp.

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Khamenei targeted by US-Israeli attacks

“All high ranking officials are alive,” he said. “So everybody is now in its position, and we are handling this situation, and everything is fine.” Aragchi said the nation may have lost "one or two commanders, but that is not a big problem."

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Khamenei was elected supreme leader after the death of Ruhollah Khomeini in June 1989. He became Khomeini's favored successor after he ousted Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, who had been critical of Khomeini's policies.

Khomeini came to power and created Iran as a theocratic Islamic republic by overthrowing the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Khamenei "appeared frail" after the attacks "and for the first time since assuming his role, he failed to appear at an annual event commemorating the military’s support for Iran’s 1979 revolution," the Council on Foreign Relations said in a contingency planning memorandum issued in February 2026.

The death of Khamenei "will precipitate only the second leadership change in Iran since the regime’s establishment nearly 50 years ago, and its implications will reverberate across the Middle East and around the world," the document said.