Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, was killed in the U.S.-Israeli attack on the country Saturday, President Donald Trump said.
“This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS,” Trump said in a social media post.
Iranian state TV confirmed Khamenei’s death Saturday night.
Khamenei, 86, had led Iran since the 1989 death of its founding supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, who ruled the country for 10 years after toppling the country’s last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
A picture released by the office of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 20, 2014, shows him addressing the nation on the occasion of Noruz, the Iranian New Year, in Tehran. Witnesses said on Feb. 28, 2026, that loud cheers echoed across parts of Tehran and residents took to their windows to applaud and play celebratory music after reports of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death.
KHAMENEI.IR via AFP via Getty Images
Khamenei had vowed during the Iran-Israel conflict of 2025 that Iran would not surrender.
“War will be met with war, bombing with bombing, and strike with strike. Iran will not submit to any demands or dictates,” Khamenei said in comments published on June 17, 2025, by Tasnim, Iran’s semiofficial state news agency.
Before his decades-long rule as Iran’s supreme leader, Khamenei served as the country’s president from 1981 to 1989.
He was hand-picked by Khomeini to succeed him.
In this June 26, 2025, handout image, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears among his supporters for the first time since the Iran-Israel war, in Tehran, Iran.
Office of the Supreme Leader of Iran via Getty Images
The supreme leader is “effectively Iran’s leader for life, per the constitution,” according to the D.C.-based think tank Council on Foreign Relations.
It is unclear who will succeed Khamenei, as no successor has been publicly named.
Trump has also indicated he expects his administration will have say over installing new leadership in Iran, but he has not publicly shared a plan for what should happen next and the situation in the country remains volatile.
Born in Mashhad, Iran, Khamenei studied to be a cleric before becoming a key figure in the Iranian revolution. He was arrested and exiled for three years during the reign of Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran, who was deposed and exiled in 1979.
ABC News’ Shannon Kingston contributed to this story.
Editor’s note: This story has corrected that Khamenei was born in in Iran, not Iraq.
