Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, was reported killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday that authorities and sources say were carried out with U.S. support. Former President Donald Trump posted the announcement on social media, and a U.S.-briefed source told reporters that an Israeli airstrike was responsible.
Khamenei led Iran for 36 years, heading a theocratic system defined by hostility to the United States and Israel and resistance to broad political and social reform. Born in July 1939 in the Shia pilgrimage city of Mashhad, he came from a religious family, studied in seminaries, and opposed the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, enduring multiple arrests. He joined the revolutionary circle around Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, survived a 1981 assassination attempt that left his right arm disabled, served two presidential terms, and succeeded Khomeini as supreme leader in 1989.
Analysts say Khamenei was initially an unlikely successor because he lacked the religious stature of the revolution’s founder, but he proved politically shrewd. Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute says Khamenei began his tenure feeling vulnerable; with backing from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) he consolidated power, sidelined rivals and became the region’s longest-serving leader. Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group describes him as a practitioner of ‘strategic patience’ who, aided by the IRGC, appropriated the levers of state power.
Under Khamenei, the IRGC grew into a vast economic and security force that critics say controls large sectors of the economy while many Iranians struggled financially. His close ties to the IRGC underpinned Tehran’s development of proxy forces across the region — notably Hezbollah in Lebanon and support for Hamas in Gaza — and a robust ballistic missile program intended to deter direct attacks on Iranian soil.
As supreme leader, Khamenei had the final say on Iran’s nuclear policy. He increasingly intervened in domestic politics, most prominently in 2009 when he backed the conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad amid a disputed presidential election; the mass protests that followed were met with harsh repression. Sanam Vakil of Chatham House says Khamenei consistently endorsed crackdowns, viewing protests as threats to regime stability. Human rights groups and monitors say thousands died under his rule, including more than 7,000 people during mass protests that began in late December 2025.
Khamenei distrusted the West and was skeptical of engagement with the United States, though he agreed to secret talks in 2013 over Iran’s nuclear program that contributed to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Analysts say he never fully trusted Washington and feared concessions would invite further pressure on Iran over missiles, human rights and regional policy. President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the deal in 2018 reinforced that distrust, and Iran expanded enrichment afterward.
A series of shocks accelerated tensions between Iran, Israel and the U.S. After Hamas — which received backing from Iran, according to many analysts — attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a broader chain of conflict followed: Iran-backed Hezbollah opened a front from Lebanon, and Israel conducted heavy retaliatory strikes that degraded Hezbollah leadership. Israel and Iran exchanged direct strikes in 2024, and repeated Israeli strikes on Iranian arms shipments in Syria weakened Tehran’s regional posture. The fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, and his reported flight to Russia in early 2025, removed a key Iranian ally.
Tensions intensified in mid-2025. In June of that year, Israel launched strikes it said targeted Iran’s nuclear program and killed Iranian scientists and generals; Iran retaliated and missile exchanges followed. On June 21, 2025, the United States launched major airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear enrichment sites; the U.S. administration said the facilities were ‘completely and totally obliterated,’ though experts debated how permanent the setback to Iran’s capabilities would be.
Analysts argue Khamenei miscalculated how far Israel and the United States would go to neutralize Iran’s military and nuclear capacities. Vakil says Khamenei had assumed he could ‘play for time’ while maneuvering diplomatically and militarily, but the international environment hardened and patience ran out. Iran’s reliance on proxies and its support for militant groups, analysts add, contributed to its isolation and invited direct punitive strikes.
By the time of his reported death, Israel had reportedly crippled key proxies and degraded Iranian air defenses, while U.S. assistance was said to have undermined aspects of the nuclear program. Khamenei’s enduring legacy includes a potent ballistic missile arsenal and an entrenched security apparatus. His reported death leaves Iran weakened and raises immediate questions about succession and the future direction of the Islamic Republic.