Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, is dead, Trump says

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the ultimate person of Iran, was killed successful the U.S.-Israeli onslaught connected the state Saturday, President Donald Trump said.

"This is not lone Justice for the radical of Iran, but for each Great Americans, and those radical from galore Countries passim the World, that person been killed oregon mutilated by Khamenei and his pack of bloodthirsty THUGS," Trump said successful a societal media post.

Iranian officials person not publically confirmed Khamenei's death.

Khamenei, 86, had led Iran since the 1989 decease of its founding ultimate leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, who ruled the state for 10 years aft toppling the country's past shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Khamenei had vowed during the Iran-Israel struggle of 2025 that Iran would not surrender.

"War volition beryllium met with war, bombing with bombing, and onslaught with strike. Iran volition not taxable to immoderate demands oregon dictates," Khamenei said successful comments published connected June 17, 2025, by Tasnim, Iran's semiofficial authorities quality agency.

Iran unrecorded updates: Trump confirms Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is dead

Before his decades-long regularisation arsenic Iran's ultimate leader, Khamenei served arsenic the country's president from 1981 to 1989.

He was hand-picked by Khomeini to win him.

The ultimate person is "effectively Iran's person for life, per the constitution," according to the D.C.-based deliberation vessel Council connected Foreign Relations.

It is unclear who volition win Khamenei, arsenic nary successor has been publically named.

Trump has besides indicated helium expects his medication volition person accidental implicit installing caller enactment successful Iran, but helium has not publically shared a program for what should hap adjacent and the concern successful the state remains volatile.

Born successful Najaf, Iraq, to an taste Azerbaijani begetter and an taste Persian mother, Khamenei studied to beryllium a cleric earlier becoming a cardinal fig successful the Iranian revolution. He was arrested and exiled for 3 years during the reign of Pahlavi, the past shah of Iran, who was deposed and exiled successful 1979.

ABC News' Shannon Kingston contributed to this story.