MIDDLE EAST MONITORING DESK ISLAMABAD
Iran has confirmed Sunday 01 March that the supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has been martyred in the joint attacks of Israel and USA on his office. Earlier, Irani sources shared that he was fine and took position at military operations room. The martyrdom of his daughter in law and son in law was confirmed on 28 Feb eve.
A 40-day mourning period for the longtime Iranian leader has been announced. Khamenei has been Iran’s supreme leader since 1989, succeeding the founder of the post-shah Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who steered Iran’s 1979 revolution.
The supreme leader holds ultimate authority over all branches of government, the military and the judiciary, while also acting as the country’s spiritual leader.
But there are least chances of chaos and uncertainty in the islamic republic as planned and expected by the invaders. While Iranian authorities have long planned for the possible killing of Khamenei in the event of a war with the US and Israel. There is a council that was set up to run the country. It may already have been running the country.
The Sunday confirmation comes after Iran’s Tasnim and Mehr news agencies initially reported that Khamenei remained “steadfast and firm in commanding the field”.
US President Donald Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform earlier in the day that 86-year-old Khamenei was killed in the joint US-Israeli strikes, which began early on Saturday.
“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,” Trump wrote.
“This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country,” he said. “Hopefully, the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and Police will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier also claimed that there were “growing signs” that Khamenei had been killed. Netanyahu said in his address that many “senior figures” had been “eliminated” in the wave of attacks targeting senior leaders, as Trump called for the government to be toppled.
Israel, Netanyahu said, had killed “commanders in the Revolutionary Guard and senior officials in the nuclear programme. And we will continue.”
On Saturday evening, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that the third and fourth waves of “retaliatory” strikes on US and Israeli positions were ongoing, according to a statement carried by the IRNA news agency.
Saturday’s strikes on Iran targeted 24 provinces, killing at least 201 people, according to Iranian media reports, citing the Red Crescent.
Among the attacks, Israel struck two schools in Iran, killing at least 108 people at the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in the southern city of Minab, and two others at a school east of the capital, Tehran.
