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2 hours ago
The US launched attacks against Iran on Saturday as part of a joint operation with Israel. Hours after the bombs started falling across Iran, Trump claimed the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed, calling it the “greatest chance” for the Iranian people to “take back” their country. State media in Iran later confirmed his death.
The announcement came after a joint US and Israeli aerial bombardment that targeted Iranian military and governmental sites. Trump said the “heavy and pinpoint bombing” was to continue through the week or as long as necessary. There was no immediate comment from Iran on Khamenei’s status.
The strikes opened a new chapter in US intervention in Iran, marking the second time in eight months that the Trump administration has attacked the country during talks over its nuclear program. At home, there has been fierce domestic criticism of the military action.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed by missile strike on Iran
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been killed, Iranian state media confirmed early on Sunday, in the opening salvo of a war aimed at regime change that was launched on Saturday by the US and Israel.
Khamenei had not been heard from since the strikes began, and satellite imagery showed that his secure compound was heavily damaged in the initial barrage on Saturday.
The confirmation came hours after Donald Trump announced the death of the ayatollah, who has ruled Iran as supreme leader since 1989, in a post on Truth Social.
US lawmakers condemn Trump over Iran strikes: ‘acts of war unauthorized by Congress’
Donald Trump’s failure to build a case with the US public for striking Iran and then going ahead apparently after a last-minute alert to Congress’s key national security experts – the so-called “gang of eight” – has fuelled fierce domestic criticism of the military action against the Islamic Republic on Saturday.
Belying the gravity of Saturday’s attacks, the president spent just three minutes of Tuesday’s record-length one hour and 48 minute State of the Union address trying to explain why the need to act against a regime that had been a strategic foe for decades had suddenly become so urgent and whose nuclear facilities he claimed to have “obliterated” in previous strikes last June.
Protesters rally across US after Iran strikes and reports of Khamenei killing
As news reports circulated that Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, had been killed in US and Israeli airstrikes on Tehran, anti-war protesters gathered across the United States, including outside the White House and in New York’s Times Square to voice opposition to US military involvement in the region.
“It wasn’t sanctioned by Congress, so what Trump is doing is on his own terms, it’s making him a fascist and it’s making the country into a fascist state,” said Sue Johnson, a protester.
Trump, she added, “just couldn’t wait. He’s such an impatient child. He’s like, ‘Well ICE didn’t work, so let’s go stir things up in the Middle East’. He bombed Iran for no specific reason.”
The rise and fall of Iran’s ruthless and pragmatic Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
When he appeared in public for the first time in five years in October 2024, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had an uncompromising message: Israel “won’t last long”, he told tens of thousands of supporters at a mosque in Tehran in a Friday sermon.
“We must stand up against the enemy while strengthening our unwavering faith,” the then-84-year-old told the gathering.
Seventeen months later, Khamenei might well have faced his final climactic confrontation after decades of bitter struggle against multiple enemies.
Iran vows ‘no leniency’ as it launches reprisal attacks on Israel and US air bases
Iran has launched a barrage of retaliatory missiles aimed at Israel and US bases across the region, denouncing the two countries’ airstrikes as a breach of the UN charter and an act of flagrant aggression designed to end any possibility of a diplomatic resolution.
Iran’s Red Crescent reported 201 deaths and 747 injuries in daylong attacks across 24 provinces, mainly directed at Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps headquarters and missile launch sites.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, admitted Iran had lost one or two senior commanders in the opening raids, and the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, said he was not in a position to confirm or deny whether the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was alive. Satellite images showed his compound in Tehran as a charred ruin incinerated by bombs, but Iranian officials said the 86-year-old leader had not been in the building.
A visual guide to US-Israeli strikes on Iran – and Tehran’s response
Israeli jets and US missiles struck hundreds of targets across Iran, sending residents fleeing in panic from major urban centres. Among the targets were Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, and Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, as well as weapons facilities across the country.
Israel announced the beginning of what it called Operation Lion’s Roar in tandem with Trump, which an Israeli military official said was aimed at “degrading the regime’s capabilities”. The Israeli official added that operations would continue for “as long as necessary”.
Explosions rock Dubai, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait as war spreads across Middle East
The war launched by the US and Israel on Iran has quickly escalated, prompting anxiety and concern in the whole region.
Iran struck the world-famous Fairmont Hotel in Dubai, setting the hotel alight. Residents watched in shock as an Iranian missile hit the five-star hotel in Dubai’s luxurious Palm Jumeirah area. Social media videos showed fires breaking out near the entrance of the hotel, which led to four people being injured.
Later Dubai authorities said debris from an intercepted drone caused a fire at the city’s famous luxury hotel the Burj Al Arab. The media office also said that part of Dubai’s international airport “sustained minor damage in an incident,” without giving further details.
War on Iran: how the US-Israeli bid for regime change unfolded
The bombs and missiles started falling on Tehran in full daylight, at about 9.15am, after the working day had started and the streets and offices were full.
Bombing campaigns in the modern era usually start at night, to heighten the target’s sense of disorientation and minimise the effectiveness of air defence.
This time was different, however. The plumes of smoke that rose from the streets of the Iranian capital came from the buildings in the government zone and villas in the well-to-do districts. As Israeli officials were to confirm later, this initial salvo from Israel and the US was a decapitation strike, aimed at killing Iran’s leadership and eliminating as much as possible of the government apparatus at the same time. For such a consequential goal, it made sense to wait until officials had arrived at their desks.
Inside Trump’s decision to attack Iran: ‘a window of opportunity’
Donald Trump launched attacks against Iran on Saturday in a joint operation with Israel after they developed intelligence that they could simultaneously target the country’s leaders and mullahs, according to two people familiar with deliberations.
The Israelis had been tracking the movements of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and determined there was a window of opportunity to launch attacks as they convened, the people said.
The thinking behind decapitating the Iranian regime was a belief that while Iran’s Revolutionary Guards might be deeply loyal to Khamenei, in the event of his death they would not back any of his successors to the same extent, the people said.
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