Iranian supreme leader killed in airstrike, leaving power vacuum atop regime

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who oversaw decades of repressive rule and resistance to the United States, was killed after the U.S. and Israel attacked the Islamist regime, according to President Donald Trump, a move that plunges the country’s future into uncertainty.

“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Trump declared on Truth Social. “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.”

The ayatollah’s death leaves a void atop Iran’s Islamist government in the biggest challenge to its nearly 50-year existence. This marks only the second change of a supreme leader after the Islamic Republic’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini’s death in 1989. Khamenei’s successor is not immediately clear.