Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for more than three decades, has been killed in a joint Israeli and United States strike, bringing an end to a 36 year rule that defined the Islamic Republic’s domestic repression and regional posture. He was 86.

Iranian state media confirmed his death early Sunday, hours after President Donald Trump announced that Khamenei had been killed in a coordinated airstrike targeting his compound on Saturday morning, February 28. Trump said the Iranian leader and other senior officials were unable to evade US intelligence and advanced surveillance capabilities. The semi official Tasnim News Agency described Khamenei as having been “martyred” in what it called a joint attack by America and Israel. Iranian outlets also reported that his daughter, son in law and grandson were killed.

Khamenei assumed the country’s highest office in 1989 following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. While Khomeini laid the ideological foundations of the new state, Khamenei shaped the security architecture that sustained it. Over time, he consolidated authority over political institutions, the judiciary, the armed forces and, crucially, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Born in July 1939 in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad to a religious family of Azerbaijani origin, Khamenei began studying the Quran at age four and completed primary education at an Islamic school. He did not finish high school, instead pursuing theological training in Mashhad before continuing in Najaf and Qom, where he studied under prominent clerics, including Khomeini. He became known for teaching jurisprudence and religious interpretation, drawing in younger students increasingly disillusioned with the monarchy.

An outspoken critic of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose absolute rule had been reinforced after the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, Khamenei was repeatedly arrested by the SAVAK secret police and at one point exiled to Iranshahr. He returned to participate in the protests that culminated in the collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty.

After the revolution, he quickly rose through the ranks of the new order. He briefly served as defence minister in 1980 and later oversaw the Revolutionary Guards during the Iran Iraq war, a conflict that killed more than a million people and devastated the economy. Frequently visiting the front lines as president in the 1980s, he forged strong ties with the Guards and internalised what analysts describe as a siege mentality rooted in wartime experience and perceived Western hostility, particularly from the United States, which had backed Saddam Hussein.

In 1981, Khamenei survived an assassination attempt by the opposition group Mojahedin e Khalq that left his right arm paralysed. That same year, he became Iran’s first clerical president. When Khomeini died in 1989, the designated successor, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, had already been sidelined. A constitutional revision council ultimately selected Khamenei, loosening clerical requirements to do so, as he did not hold the highest religious rank. At the time, he expressed doubt about his suitability, calling the prospect of his leadership symbolic rather than real. In practice, his authority proved anything but symbolic.

Initially regarded as a compromise figure lacking Khomeini’s religious stature, Khamenei moved decisively to secure his position. Analysts say he relied heavily on the Revolutionary Guards to build a durable power base, gradually sidelining rivals and appropriating key levers of state authority. Under his watch, the Guards evolved into a dominant military, political and economic force, developing a vast commercial empire that extended across major sectors of the economy while many ordinary Iranians struggled under sanctions and mismanagement.

Khamenei promoted what he termed a resistance economy, seeking self reliance amid punishing Western sanctions. He maintained deep suspicion of engagement with Washington, arguing that concessions on the nuclear issue would only invite pressure on Iran’s missile programme, human rights record or regional policies. Although he issued a religious decree in 2003 prohibiting nuclear weapons and insisted the programme was civilian, he retained the final say on all nuclear matters.

Despite his mistrust, Khamenei authorised secret talks with the United States in 2013 that led to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The agreement offered sanctions relief in exchange for limits on Iran’s nuclear activities. Observers describe his approval as pragmatic, aimed at easing economic strain and preserving regime stability rather than normalising ties. President Trump’s subsequent withdrawal from the deal during his first term reinforced Khamenei’s long held scepticism. Iran later expanded uranium enrichment to 60 percent purity, edging closer to weapons grade levels while maintaining its civilian claim.

Domestically, Khamenei’s rule was marked by repeated waves of unrest. In 1997, reformist Mohammad Khatami’s landslide election signalled popular appetite for greater openness, but Khamenei resisted substantive rapprochement with the West and strengthened loyalist networks within the security apparatus. He invested in ideological training within the Guards and the Basij militia, cultivating a constituency committed to perpetual resistance.

In 2009, after he endorsed the disputed re election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hundreds of thousands joined what became known as the Green Movement, backing defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and alleging fraud. Security forces arrested thousands and killed dozens, according to Amnesty International. Khamenei dismissed the protests as foreign inspired attempts to undermine the Islamic Republic.

Subsequent demonstrations, including those in 2019 over fuel price hikes and in 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, were met with force. Amnesty reported more than 100 killed in 2019 and over 500 in 2022. Khamenei framed the unrest as a national security threat orchestrated by Western and regional adversaries.

The most severe challenge came in late December 2025, when protests sparked by economic collapse and currency depreciation escalated into nationwide calls for regime change. Iranian authorities said more than 3,000 people were killed; a US based human rights group placed the figure above 7,000. Independent verification was not possible. Critics argued that Khamenei’s insistence on ideological independence had alienated a young population, roughly 75 percent of whom were born after the revolution, seeking economic opportunity and social reform rather than confrontation with the West.

Regionally, Khamenei pursued a strategy of forward defence through an “axis of resistance,” supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen and allied groups in Iraq, as well as backing Syria’s Bashar al Assad. The late Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC Quds Force, was the chief architect of this network until his assassination by the United States in 2020. Khamenei also prioritised development of a substantial ballistic missile programme, viewed as a core deterrent capability.

This regional posture ultimately set the stage for escalation. The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, which killed nearly 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage, triggered a chain reaction. Hezbollah opened fire from Lebanon, leading to a conflict that decimated its senior leadership, including Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli strikes on Iranian targets in Syria weakened Assad’s government, which fell in December 2024 before he fled to Russia in January 2025. Israel and Iran exchanged direct strikes in 2024 for the first time.

In June 2025, Israel launched major attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, killing senior commanders and scientists. Iran retaliated with missile barrages. On June 21, 2025, the United States struck three key enrichment sites with bunker busting munitions. Trump declared the facilities completely obliterated, though debate persisted over the extent of the damage. Khamenei warned that any US intervention would cause irreparable harm and rejected calls for surrender.

Further negotiations between Tehran and Washington in the United Arab Emirates and Geneva failed to produce a breakthrough. The United States demanded dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, limits on ballistic missiles and an end to support for regional allies. Iran signalled willingness to discuss enrichment levels but treated missiles and proxy networks as non negotiable.

On February 28, Trump announced the start of a major combat operation in Iran and made explicit reference to regime change, urging Iranians to seize what he described as a rare opportunity to take control of their government. Hours later, Khamenei was dead.

At the time of his killing, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure had been heavily damaged, its air defences degraded and two key regional allies, Hamas and Hezbollah, severely weakened. What remains intact is a sizeable missile arsenal built under his supervision. His death leaves unresolved the question of succession and the future direction of a country now facing internal strain, external pressure and a profoundly altered regional landscape.