Khamenei killed in US-Israeli strikes: Iran’s supreme leader dies at 86 after 36 years in power

Ali Khamenei, the cleric who steered Iran through 36 turbulent years marked by confrontation with Washington and an unyielding grip at home, has been killed at the age of 86 in air strikes by Israel and the United States that destroyed his central Tehran compound, Iranian state media announced on Saturday.

His death closes a chapter that began in 1989, when he emerged as an unlikely successor to Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic. Initially dismissed as lacking charisma and senior clerical credentials, Khamenei consolidated power steadily, turning himself into the Islamic Republic’s ultimate authority -- commander of the armed forces, overseer of the judiciary and security establishment, and arbiter of Iran’s foreign and nuclear policy.

Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace once described him as “an accident of history” who evolved “from a weak president to an initially weak supreme leader to one of the five most powerful Iranians of the last 100 years,” in remarks to Reuters.


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Relentless hostility toward Washington

Throughout his tenure, Khamenei cast the United States as Iran’s principal adversary, frequently invoking the phrase “the Great Satan” in public speeches. His rhetoric sharpened further after the start of Donald Trump’s second term in 2025.

As protests once again rippled across Iranian cities, some chanting “Death to the dictator,” and Trump threatened possible intervention, Khamenei vowed in January that Iran would not “yield to the enemy.” Pressed by Washington to accept new curbs on its nuclear programme, he denounced “the rude and arrogant leaders of America” and asked: “Who are you to decide whether Iran should have enrichment?”

He consistently rejected claims that Iran’s nuclear activities were aimed at building an atomic bomb. In the mid-1990s, he issued a fatwa declaring the “production and usage” of nuclear weapons forbidden, stating: “It is against our Islamic thoughts.”

In 2015, he cautiously backed a landmark agreement negotiated by then-President Hassan Rouhani with world powers, which restricted Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. The deal eased some of Iran’s economic isolation. But Khamenei’s distrust of Washington endured, intensifying after Trump’s first administration withdrew from the accord in 2018 and reinstated sweeping sanctions targeting Iran’s oil and shipping sectors.

When Trump renewed pressure in 2025 for a tougher agreement, Khamenei sided with hardliners who had long criticised Rouhani’s outreach to the West.

At home, Khamenei exercised near-absolute authority. The constitution vested in him sweeping powers, including command of the armed forces and the authority to appoint senior officials, among them the heads of the judiciary, state broadcasting and key security bodies. He placed loyalists in charge of the elite Revolutionary Guards and ensured that no political faction — even among allies — amassed enough influence to challenge him.

Iran witnessed repeated unrest during his rule: student protests in 1999 and 2002, the mass demonstrations that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election, and the nationwide turmoil of 2022 after the death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini. In each instance, the state responded forcefully. In 2022, after months of unrest, authorities carried out hangings and publicly displayed bodies suspended from cranes — a stark warning to dissenters.

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International rights groups frequently accused Tehran of systemic abuses. Iranian officials maintained that the country had the best human rights record in the Muslim world.

From prison to pinnacle

Born in Mashhad in April 1939, Khamenei entered the clergy at 11 and studied in Iraq and in Qom, Iran’s religious capital. His father, an ethnic Azeri cleric, opposed mixing religion and politics — a path his son decisively rejected.

Khamenei’s political activism led to repeated imprisonment under the shah, including a 1963 detention in Mashhad during which, according to his official biography, he endured severe torture. After the 1979 revolution toppled the monarchy, he rose swiftly through the new Islamic Republic’s ranks.

As deputy defence minister, he developed close ties with the military and became a key figure during the devastating 1980–88 war with Iraq. A skilled orator, he was appointed Tehran’s Friday prayer leader by Khomeini and later became the first cleric to serve as president, winning office with Khomeini’s backing.

His elevation to supreme leader after Khomeini’s death surprised many, given his comparatively modest clerical standing. Yet over time he entrenched his authority, shaping Iran’s domestic and foreign trajectory for more than three decades.

Expanding and losing regional clout

Khamenei oversaw a vast expansion of Iranian influence across the Middle East, backing Shi’ite militias in Iraq and Lebanon and supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with troops and resources. He channelled billions of dollars into what Tehran termed the “Axis of Resistance,” including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Palestinian group Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis, positioning Iran as a central adversary of Israel and the United States.

Under his watch, Iran and Israel waged a prolonged shadow war, with Israel targeting Iranian nuclear scientists and Revolutionary Guard commanders. Tensions erupted into direct confrontation during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza beginning in 2023. Missile and drone exchanges in 2024 marked an escalation, culminating in June 2025 when Israeli jets struck Iranian nuclear and military sites. The United States joined the 12-day air offensive.

Although U.S. and Iranian officials were still negotiating as recently as Thursday, American officials said Tehran had refused to relinquish uranium enrichment. On Saturday, after warnings of further action, Israel and the United States launched what became the most ambitious strikes on Iranian targets in decades, killing Khamenei.

On the diplomatic front, Khamenei firmly opposed normalising relations with Washington, arguing that the United States had backed extremist groups to inflame sectarian conflict in the region. He also upheld a 1989 fatwa by Khomeini calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie over his novel The Satanic Verses. Khamenei’s official website reaffirmed the edict’s validity as recently as 2017. Rushdie survived a stabbing attack in New York in 2022; his assailant was sentenced in 2025 to 25 years in prison for attempted murder.

Khamenei’s death leaves Iran confronting uncertainty amid external military pressure and persistent domestic dissatisfaction, particularly among younger Iranians.

“I just want to live a peaceful, normal life … Instead, they (the rulers) insist on a nuclear programme, supporting armed groups in the region, and maintaining hostility toward the United States,” Mina, a 25-year-old from Lorestan province, told Reuters by phone at the start of 2026.

“Those policies may have made sense in 1979, but not today,” the unemployed university graduate added. “The world has changed.”

(With inputs from Reuters, AP)