Iranian president declares Khamenei´s assassination “declaration of war against Muslims”
TEHRAN
List of Top Iranian Officials Reported Killed in US-Israeli Strikes 1. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: Supreme Leader of Iran 2. Ali Shamkhani: Senior advisor to the Supreme Leader; Secretary of the Defence Council 3. Mohammad Pakpour: Commander of the IRGC 4. Amir Nasirzadeh Minister of Defense 5.
Mohammad Shirazi: Chief of the Military Bureau of the Supreme Leader 6. Saleh Asadi (or Salah Asadi): Senior intelligence official / head of emergency command intelligence 7. Hossein Jabal Amelian: Head of SPND (nuclear research) 8. Reza Mozaffari-Nia: Former head of SPND (nuclear program).
Iran launches retaliatory strikes against Israel, US
Meanwhile, Iran has begun 40 days of mourning after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in ongoing attacks by the United States and Israel, according to Iranian state media. Top security officials were also killed in Saturday’s strikes, along with Khamenei’s daughter, son-in-law and grandson.
The killings mark one of the most significant blows to Iran’s leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Footage aired by Iranian state media showed supporters mourning at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, with several people seen crying and collapsing in grief. The killing also led to protests in neighbouring Iraq, which declared three days of public mourning.
In Baghdad, protesters confronted security forces in the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government buildings and foreign embassies. Meanwhile, the official IRNA news agency reported that a three-person council, consisting of the country’s president, the chief of the judiciary, and one of the jurists of the Guardian Council, will temporarily assume all leadership duties in the country.
The body will temporarily oversee the country until a new supreme leader is elected. Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, accused the US and Israel of trying to plunder Iran, in an interview aired on state TV. He also called on Iranians to unite. “Groups seeking to divide Iran should know that we will not tolerate it,” he added.
Khamenei assumed leadership of Iran in 1989 following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Islamic revolution a decade earlier. While Khomeini was regarded as the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the Pahlavi monarchy, Khamenei went on to shape Iran’s military and paramilitary apparatus, strengthening both its domestic control and its regional influence.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pledged revenge and said it had launched strikes on 27 bases hosting US troops in the region, as well as Israeli military facilities in Tel Aviv. UN chief Guterres warns US-Israeli strikes and Iran’s retaliation threaten global peace
US President Donald Trump, in a social media post on Sunday, warned Iran that it would be hit “with a force that has never been seen before” if it retaliated. Iran’s retaliatory attacks since Saturday have targeted Israel and US assets across multiple Middle East countries, including Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Harlan Ullman, chairman of the strategic advisory firm Killowen Group and an adviser to the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, said the US may have made a “big mistake” by killing Khamenei. “Decapitation only works when you get all the leaders, and I don’t think that we got all the leaders,” Ullman said, adding that the US should not expect Iran’s leadership to enter negotiations in the immediate aftermath.
Iranian state media reported on Saturday at least 201 people have been killed in the joint US-Israeli attacks across 24 provinces, citing the Red Crescent. In southern Iran, at least 148 people were killed and 95 wounded in a strike on an elementary girls’ school in Minab on Saturday, with the toll continuing to rise, according to state media.
