The killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has triggered celebrations among many Iranians, but analysts say the moment marks not an endpoint but the beginning of a new and highly consequential chapter for the Islamic Republic.
With Iran at war and its supreme leader dead, Tehran faces a delicate question: whether to appoint a successor quickly to project continuity, or delay the decision to avoid presenting a new leadership target to its enemies.
The death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has thrust a rather obscure figure into the center of the country’s uncertain political future.
The CIA helped identify a Saturday morning gathering of Iran’s top leaders in Tehran, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, before Israel carried out a strike that killed him and other senior officials, The New York Times reported.
Celebration and stunned disbelief swept across parts of Iran on Saturday evening after US and Israeli officials announced that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in Saturday’s airstrikes, marking the end of more than three decades at the helm of the Islamic Republic and closing a chapter in Iran’s modern history that many Iranians had long hoped to see concluded.
Famous Iranian footballer Rashid Mazaheri has had no contact with his wife for more than 48 hours after comparing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to Satan in a social media post condemning the Islamic Republic’s January massacre of protesters, she said.
A stuffed rat hung by protesting students at Tehran’s Sharif University and removed by a Basij-affiliated student signaled that supporters of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have effectively acknowledged and amplified a mocking nickname that chips away at his authority.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said the United States will never succeed in toppling the Islamic Republic and warned that even the world’s strongest military can suffer crippling blows.