Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been killed in the opening salvo of a regime change war launched on Saturday by the US and Israel, Donald Trump has claimed.
The US president announced the death of the ayatollah, who has ruled Iran as supreme leader since 1989, in a post on Truth Social.
“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Trump wrote.
“He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do.”
Trump said that the goal of the military campaign, which began on Saturday morning with a barrage of missiles and airstrikes, was regime change.
“This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country,” he wrote.
“We are hearing that many of their IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], Military, and other Security and Police Forces, no longer want to fight, and are looking for Immunity from us.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, had earlier said there were “many signs” Khamenei was “no longer alive”, and Israeli officials briefed media that his body had been recovered.
The death of Iran’s supreme leader is a significant early success in the joint US-Israeli operation, which began with waves of air attacks across the country and have plunged the Middle East into a new regional conflict with no certain timeline or outcome.
Earlier on Saturday, Trump told NBC: “The people that make all the decisions, most of them are gone.” He added that “a large amount of leadership” in Iran was also killed.
Khamenei has carried a political heft unmatched by any other serving Iranian official, military or religious leader.
Iran’s assembly of experts, a council of religious leaders, should convene to select a new supreme leader when Khamenei has died, although analysts indicated that the ultraconservative IRGC may be better positioned to consolidate power.
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.
Netanyahu said that Israeli strikes had also killed “several leaders” involved in the Iranian nuclear programme and that strikes against sites linked to the programme would continue in the coming days.
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, had earlier claimed to NBC News that Khamenei and Masoud Pezeshkian, the president, were alive “as far as I know”.
In an earlier video address, Trump claimed Operation Epic Fury would end a security threat to the US and give Iranians a chance to “rise up” against their rulers. Netanyahu in his evening address called on Iranians to “flood the streets and finish the job”.
Iranian media reported that 201 people had been killed and 747 people injured in the initial US-Israeli attacks, including more than 80 children at a school.
Iranian officials said they had not been surprised by the US attacks and that the consequences would “be long-lasting and extensive. All scenarios were on the table including ones that were not previously considered.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened all US bases and interests in the region and said Iran’s retaliation would continue until “the enemy is decisively defeated”.
In response to the attack, Iran has launched missile and drone strikes against US bases, including the headquarters of the US navy’s fifth fleet in Bahrain, Israeli residential areas, and targets in other Gulf countries including the Fairmont hotel in Dubai and a high-rise building in Bahrain.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the military had “successfully defended against” hundreds of Iranian missiles and drones and that no US casualties had been reported.
A senior Trump administration official said the US had chosen to launch strikes against Iran on Saturday because its ballistic missiles programme presented an “intolerable” threat to US forces and allies in the region and that the US had information that Iran was considering a pre-emptive strike.
“The threat from Iran is ultimately their ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, but in the short term, it is the conventional weapon, the conventional missile capability, that they have, particularly in the southern belt, that poses a threat to the United States and our allies in the region,” the official said, adding that the US had proven “quite effective” at targeting Iranian launchers.
“The president decided he was not going to sit back and allow American forces in the region to absorb attacks from conventional missiles,” the official added.
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