By Abbas Al Lawati, Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
(CNN) — Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, who ruled Iran with an iron fist as its supreme leader for nearly four decades, facing off against the US and Israel while crushing dissent and advancing a controversial nuclear program at home, has been killed, a seismic development that plunges his nation and the region into uncharted territory.
Multiple Iranian state media outlets confirmed Khamenei’s death on Sunday morning, hours after US and Israeli officials declared he had been killed in their joint strikes targeting his regime.
One of the Middle East’s most powerful men, Khamenei dominated Iran during a reign defined by resistance and resilience — standing firm against decades of Western and Israeli pressure aimed at forcing the Islamic Republic to bend to their will. Under his leadership, Iran expanded its influence far beyond its borders, earning a reputation as a formidable and dangerous regional power to be reckoned with.
But his death comes at a time when Iran is arguably at its weakest since he took power in 1989. Decades of Western sanctions had already left the country isolated and economically battered before American and Israeli strikes in June 2025 dealt his rule a severe blow.
New attacks launched on February 28 specifically targeted Khamenei and other top leaders, devastating his residence and offices in Tehran.
“The Supreme Leader of Iran Has Reached Martyrdom,” state broadcaster IRIB reported Sunday morning.
The latest US-Israeli strikes followed the crushing of Iranian anti-government protests that began in late December over economic grievances but quickly turned political, spreading across all 31 of the country’s provinces within weeks. The regime responded with a brutal crackdown, killing thousands of protesters and prompting a global outcry and a threat of intervention from US President Donald Trump.
That intervention came on Saturday, when Trump said the US military was undertaking a “massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”
He also called on the Iranian people to “take over your government,” adding that they now “have a president who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond.”
In the final years of Khamenei’s stubborn rule, the country grew increasingly isolated, plagued by corruption and sinking deeper into economic turmoil, with dwindling prospects for a swelling youth population and shrinking middle class.
‘Axis of resistance’
Khamenei’s supporters argue that he was pushed against the wall for pursuing a foreign policy that defied the United States and Israel, and that his death was the ultimate price he paid for that stance.
Under Khamenei’s leadership, Iran advanced a controversial nuclear program that became the defining fault line between the Islamic Republic and the West, and which he used as a bargaining chip to gain leverage over adversaries.
He ruled a nation of 90 million people with a 2,500-year-old civilization, maintaining an iron grip as he consolidated powe.
Though surrounded by enemies, Khamenei long kept them at bay. After he became his country’s top political and religious authority following the death of the previous supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war, Iran avoided major direct attacks from its adversaries for more than three decades — even as other regional foes of the United States and Israel fell one by one. The regime entrenched itself with the formation of the “Axis of Resistance,” a loose network of allied groups spread throughout the region that allowed Tehran to project power at its enemies’ doorstep.
But all that — along with the aura of fear and intimidation that Khamenei carefully cultivated — beg