{"id":268542,"date":"2026-03-01T08:09:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T12:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=268542"},"modified":"2026-03-01T08:19:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T12:19:26","slug":"irans-supreme-leader-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-killed-in-us-israeli-air-strikes-aged-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/irans-supreme-leader-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-killed-in-us-israeli-air-strikes-aged-86\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Killed in US-Israeli Air Strikes Aged 86"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FRANCE 24-<\/strong> Iran\u2019s\u202fAyatollah\u202fAli Khamenei on\u202fFebruary 28 \u202fdied age\u202f86 in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the United States.\u202fThe country\u2019s supreme leader from 1989 \u20132026,\u202fKhamenei was\u202fa\u202fconservative cleric with fervent political beliefs whose tight grip\u202fon power led to the\u202fconsolidation\u202fof an authoritarian regime in\u00a0Iran<\/a>\u00a0and direct confrontations with the West and\u00a0Israel<\/a>.<\/p>

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\u202fKhamenei was born in July 1939 in the northeastern city of Mashad. His family was very religious and hailed from Iran\u2019s Turkish-speaking Azeri minority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a young man, he began advanced religious studies in the\u202fholy\u202fcity of Qom under the tutelage of Iran\u2019s future theocrat, the\u202fAyatollah Ruhollah\u202fKhomeini.\u202f\u201cIn the areas of political and revolutionary ideas and Islamic jurisprudence, I am certainly a disciple of Imam Khomeini,” read a\u202fquote from Khamenei<\/a>\u202fon his official website.<\/p>

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A studious disciple with a passion for poetry, Khamenei not only followed his mentor\u2019s religious teachings, he also followed Khomeini into politics, joining the Islamic opposition during Shah\u202fMohammad Reza Pahlavi\u2019s reign.<\/p>

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Launched by Khomeini in 1960, the\u202fIslamic opposition\u202faimed to overthrow\u202fthe\u202fshah,\u202fwho ruled as an absolute monarch.\u202fKhamenei was arrested and imprisoned multiple times for participating\u202fin\u202fanti-regime\u202fprotests\u202fbefore the fall of the monarchy during the\u202f1979\u202fIranian Revolution\u202fand\u202fKhomeini\u2019s\u202fsubsequent\u202ftriumphant return to Iran\u202ffrom exile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u202fIslamic\u202frevolution also kick-started Khamenei\u2019s own political rise.\u202fWhen\u202fKhomeini became Iran\u2019s new supreme leader,\u202fhe appointed\u202fKhamenei\u202fto\u202fthe influential position\u202fof the imam leading Tehran\u2019s\u202fFriday Prayers. He also became the\u202fsupreme\u202fleader\u2019s representative on the Iranian Supreme Defence Council.\u202f<\/p>

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Controversial succession<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In June 1981,\u202fKhamenei survived an assassination attempt when a bomb hidden inside a tape recorder exploded next to him in a Tehran mosque. He lost the use of his right arm in the attack.\u202f\u201cI felt that\u202fGod was sparing me and saving me for heavier responsibilities,\u201d he later said of the incident.\u202f\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four months\u202fafter the assassination attempt,\u202fKhamenei, aged 41,\u202fwas elected\u202fIran\u2019s president with a landslide\u202f95 percent of the vote. He was re-elected in 1985, during the Iran-Iraq war.<\/p>

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The day after\u202fKhomeini\u2019s death on\u202fJune\u202f3,\u202f1989,\u202fKhamenei was\u202fappointed\u202fas Iran\u2019s new supreme leader\u202ffollowing an extraordinary meeting of the Assembly of Experts.<\/p>

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Khomeini himself had chosen Khamenei to be his political successor, ousting previous candidate\u202fAyatollah Ali\u202fMontazeri\u202ffor his democratic leanings. But it was a post he was supposed to hold for an interim period until a\u202fmore religiously qualified candidate was selected.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite Khamenei\u2019s black turban marking him\u202fas a descendent of the Prophet Mohammed,\u202fhe held only an intermediate rank in the Shiite clergy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In controversial circumstances that remain unclear,\u202fKhamenei\u202fwas hastily appointed ayatollah without having completed the required theological studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once in power, Khamenei\u202ftook\u202fadvantage of a power struggle between future Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ahmed Khomeini (the son of the former leader) \u2013 both of whom coveted his post \u2013 to consolidate his position.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a new leader holding increasingly radical and conservative beliefs, he made constitutional amendments giving him total control over the country and its institutions under the principle of\u202fvelayat-e-faqih,\u202for\u202f\u201crule of\u202freligious jurists\u201d, enshrining\u202fthe\u202fsupremacy of the\u202fclergy over the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately,\u202fKhamenei took complete control of all the levers of power in Iran.\u202fHe operated as supreme commander of the Iranian armed forces, giving him final say in matters of security, defence and foreign policy. He had the power to dismiss the president and\u202fvalidate presidential elections<\/a>, and he appointed all of the country\u2019s top security chiefs and the head of the judiciary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Green movement, Mahsa Amini: protests against authority<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although\u202fKhamenei lacked the religious authority of his predecessor, he was deeply political.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the home front, he took advantage of the balance of power within the regime and began to use Iran\u2019s security forces, including the Revolutionary Guards, to implement his policies. He formed a close relationship with General Qasem Soleimani, who was considered Khamenei\u2019s second in command until he was assassinated by a US drone strike in January 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overseas, Khamenei adopted a strategy of tension with the West and with neighbouring Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khamenei managed to maintain his grip on power with bloody suppressions of street protests, including the 1999 student protest, the Green Movement against the controversial 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad<\/a>, and\u202fprotests against rising prices<\/a>\u202fin 2017 and 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September 2022,\u202fa\u202fmassive protest movement<\/a>\u202fwas sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini<\/a>, a 22-year-old woman who died in hospital after being arrested by the morality police for improperly wearing her hijab.\u202fWidespread outrage over suspected police brutality gave rise to the \u201cWoman, Life, Freedom\u201d movement, with protestors calling for \u201cdeath to the dictator\u201d.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the year after Amini\u2019s death,\u202fNGOs reported\u202fmore than 500 protesters<\/a>\u202fwere killed by the regime.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An isolated regime<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Alongside homegrown protest movements that tested Khamenei\u2019s authority and pushed his regime to its limits, on the international stage he became the central figure in one of the most significant geopolitical conflicts of the 21st\u202fcentury: Iran\u2019s nuclear programme.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accusations from the West and Israel<\/a> that Iran was secretly developing its own nuclear weapon were denied by Tehran.\u202fThe regime\u2019s\u202fisolation\u202fon the international stage\u202fincreased with\u202ftense negotiations with major international powers, who\u202fslapped\u202fsanctions that brought the Iranian economy to its knees.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, Khamenei \u2013\u202fwho frequently criticised the US for its \u201cdeviant culture\u201d and \u201ccriminal diplomacy\u201d \u2013\u202fgave his approval for the\u202fsweeping\u202fnuclear deal\u202fbetween Iran and the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit its\u202fnuclear programme, accepting surprise UN nuclear inspections,\u202fin exchange for sanctions relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u202fnuclear\u202fdeal\u202fwas viewed with suspicion in Israel and Saudi Arabia, particularly as\u202fIran increased\u202fits influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, stoking tensions\u202fin the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018,\u202fduring US President Donald Trump\u2019s first term\u202fin the White House, the US\u202fwithdrew from the\u202fnuclear deal\u202fand\u202fslapped crippling\u202fsanctions against Tehran, reigniting tensions between Iran, the West and western allies in the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Khamenei\u2019s orders, Iran retaliated by accelerating its nuclear programme.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2021 \u2013 as talks aimed at reinstating the treaty resumed, with\u202findirect participation from the US<\/a>\u202f\u2013 the Islamic Republic had reached nuclear milestones including increasing its uranium enrichment rate to an unprecedented 60 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On October 7, 2023, an unprecedented attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas\u202ftriggered a chain of events that would destabilise Khamenei\u2019s position on the international stage.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamas<\/a>\u202fwas part of an \u201caxis of resistance\u201d in the Middle East, created by Khamenei and Soleimani, uniting militant and political organisations such as Hezbollah<\/a> in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retaliatory attacks by Israel on Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in the wake of\u202fthe\u202fOctober 7\u202fattack\u202flargely decimated their leadership, taking out what Khamenei intended to be a first line of defence deterring direct attacks on the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the autumn of 2024, Khamenei watched helplessly as Israel\u202feliminated Hassan Nasrallah<\/a>, the Hezbollah leader who had pledged allegiance to Iran\u2019s supreme leader, along with Yahya Sinwar<\/a>, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Syria, rebels toppled long-term ally Bashar al-Assad<\/a>, leaving Khamenei\u2019s grip on the region dramatically diminished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hunted by Netanyahu<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With Iran\u2019s proxies weakened, the path was cleared for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> to launch direct attacks on Iran that he said would dismantle Khamenei\u2019s nuclear programme.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 12-day war broke out in June 2025, when Israeli strikes targeted hundreds of military and nuclear sites in Iran, killing high-ranking\u202fIranian\u202fofficials and nuclear scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tehran launched drones and missile attacks on sites\u202facross\u202fIsrael in response, notably targeting Tel Aviv and Haifa.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the US\u202fjoined the fray, launching strikes on targets in central Iran,\u202fall sides accepted a ceasefire deal imposed by Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Khamenei went into hiding while his country was bombarded, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that killing the ayatollah \u201cwould put an end to the conflict\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Unites States \u201cknow exactly where the so-called \u2018Supreme Leader\u2019 is hiding\u201d, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. \u201cHe\u2019s an easy target, but is safe there \u2013 We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read moreAli Khamenei: Backed into a corner, Iran\u2019s ruthless leader faces fight for survival<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the conflict, none of\u202fTehran\u2019s allies,\u202fsuch as\u202fChina and Russia, came to Khamenei\u2019s aid. Iran\u2019s supreme leader\u202femerged from the\u202f12-day\u202fwar having suffered the double humiliation of discovering the extent to which Israeli spies had infiltrated the highest echelons of his regime, and of seemingly owing his survival to the US\u202fpresident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January, he has ordered the deadliest crackdown since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, saying those protesting nationwide, initially against soaring prices, “should be put in their place” before security forces opened fire on demonstrators chanting “Death to the dictator!”. He blamed US President Donald Trump for the unrest, saying: “We consider the US president criminal for the casualties, damages and slander he inflicted on the Iranian nation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under pressure to negotiate, Tehran agreed to several rounds of talks, while the US president threatened the Islamic Republic with military intervention if the discussions did not result in an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 28, Israel and the United States launched a campaign of air strikes described as \u201cpreventive\u201d against Iran, stating that it was expected to last \u201cseveral days.\u201d Donald Trump directly calls on the Iranian people to \u201cseize\u201d power. Among the targets in Tehran was Ali Khamenei’s coumpound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khamenei\u2019s death, after decades of consolidating his grip on power, opens a period of deep uncertainty for Iran, the future of its nuclear programme and the survival of a regime that is increasingly isolated internationally and rejected by much of the country\u2019s youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from the original in French by Joanna York<\/em><\/p>\n

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FRANCE 24- Iran\u2019s\u202fAyatollah\u202fAli Khamenei on\u202fFebruary 28 \u202fdied age\u202f86 in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the United States.\u202fThe country\u2019s supreme leader from 1989 \u20132026,\u202fKhamenei was\u202fa\u202fconservative cleric with fervent political beliefs whose tight grip\u202fon power led to the\u202fconsolidation\u202fof an authoritarian regime in\u00a0Iran\u00a0and direct confrontations with the West and\u00a0Israel. \u202fKhamenei was born in July […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":268543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nIran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Killed in US-Israeli Air Strikes Aged 86 - Antigua News Room<\/title>\n<meta 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