US, Israel attack Iran live: Tehran confirms Khamenei’s killing

We are getting reports of people pouring out into the streets of the Iranian capital, Tehran, following the news report of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s killing.

There will be expected ceremonies down the road following the earlier announcement of a 40-day mourning period.

These ceremonies will likely take place amid the continuing bombardment across the country. A few hours ago, we heard another sound of a massive explosion here in the capital.

Khamenei took the helm of the Islamic republic in 1989 following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the charismatic leader who had spearheaded the Islamic revolution a decade earlier.

While Khomeini was the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the rule of the Pahlavi monarchy, it was Khamenei who shaped the military and paramilitary apparatus that form both Iran’s defence against its enemies, and provide it with influence well beyond its borders.

Before becoming supreme leader, he had led Iran as president through a bloody war with Iraq in the 1980s.

The grinding conflict, coupled with a sense of isolation among many Iranians as Western countries backed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, deepened Khamenei’s distrust of the West generally and the United States, in particular, analysts say.

That sentiment would underpin his decades-long rule and cement the idea that Iran must remain in a constant state of defence against external and internal threats.

Read Khamenei’s full obituary, here.

In a short post on X, Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s deposed Shah, has thanked Trump for the military operation launched against Iran, saying “their hour of liberation is at hand”.

“The courageous Iranian people have paid a heavy price for freedom,” he added.

Pahlavi, who is seeking to lead Iran, said that he has laid out his plan “for an orderly, transparent transition to a democratic Iran”.

Pete Hegseth has declared that the “Iranian navy will be destroyed”, adding that US military forces “are fully unleashed to achieve” the objectives set by Trump.

In a post on X, Hegseth said that Washington “will not tolerate powerful missiles” targeting Americans after Iran launched a counter-strike following the joint US and Israel attacks.

“Those missiles will be destroyed, along with Iran’s missile production. The Iranian navy will be destroyed,” he said.

Khamenei’s killing represents a different day in Tehran, a different day in Iran, and a different day in the region.

He played an instrumental role in the Islamic Revolution. There are people who view him in a positive way and there are people who view him in a very negative way.

But at the end, you cannot go away from the idea of what he was to the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolution. He was a very central and instrumental personality before the revolution and after the revolution.

Now he is being presented as the martyr of the Islamic Revolution.

Most members of Trump’s Republican party have rallied behind the president’s attacks on Iran, with a few notable exceptions.

Democrats, meanwhile, failed to offer a unified message. Some, like Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen charging Trump is “lying to the American people as he launches an illegal, regime-change war against Iran”.

Others, like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were more circumspect.

“Confronting Iran’s malign regional activities, nuclear ambitions, and harsh oppression of the Iranian people demands American strength, resolve, regional coordination, and strategic clarity,” he said.

“Unfortunately, President Trump’s fitful cycles of lashing out and risking wider conflict are not a viable strategy.”

Read more about US politicians reacted, here.

Iranian media affiliated with the IRGC and several top Iranian officials have all denied news reports of the supreme leader’s death, calling them fake news.

It is important to note that there is a process in the Iranian constitution in the case of the death of the Supreme Leader.

Under that process, there’s going to be a council of three people, including the Iranian president, head of the judiciary and one cleric from the Guardian Council, who are going to take control of the country.

Now, we have also been receiving reports about authorities being given to Ali Larijani, the Secretary of the National Security Council.

All in all, we cannot confirm these reports. However there are processes that can be followed in case of such Khamenei’s death. And that is going to be a game-changer if that happens.

CMA CGM has issued a statement telling its vessels in the Gulf to “take shelter”.

“All ships currently in the Gulf, or on route to the Gulf, have received the instruction, with immediate effect, to take shelter,” it said.

It added that passage of its vessels through the Suez Canal has been suspended and that the ships were instead rerouted to the Cape of Good Hope.

The world’s fifth-largest shipowners, Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, said earlier it was suspending all transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

It would appear that the US president’s source on the alleged death of the Iranian supreme leader are the Israelis.

We have heard nothing from any of the intelligence agencies in the US, or indeed from the Pentagon that they provided this information to the president.

The president himself gave no indication of what his source was for this particular claim. The Israelis had been saying this since earlier in the day. So the assumption is at this stage that Trump got this from Israeli sources.

So the question that is being asked now is: Why is he so certain?

Because this was a very carefully drafted statement. Now, earlier in the afternoon, he had said this same exact point in media interviews, but not in the carefully scripted way it came out on his Truth Social account.

It is important to note that he claimed in this same post that there is some kind of insurrection or resistance to the leadership within Iran and expressed hope that there can be some kind of popular uprising in the country.

The US president has not had any public appearances today, but his press secretary has told reporters he still plans to attend a Republican fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Leavitt told travelling pool reporters that attending the fundraiser “is more important than ever”.

That event started a short while ago.

We’ll be watching for any possible comments by Trump. Stay tuned.

As a reminder, the US attacks on Iran come after Trump ran for office on an “America First” agenda with promises to end American intervention abroad. His Republican party, already facing what is expected to be a punishing midterm election in November, is expected to be further hurt by the current escalation.

The Security Council meeting ended at about 23:00 GMT. It lasted about two hours.

We heard from all 15 of the Security Council members as well as Guterres and the ambassadors of Iran and Israel.

There are several takeaways.

First off, Guterres addressed the meeting and called out what he said was a “blatant act of aggression” by the US and Israel against Iran. He said it was an “illegal violation” of the UN charter, but then also condemned the retaliatory actions by Iran. The Secretary General said this is an escalation that can spin out of control.

The Iranian ambassador noted these strikes happened in the middle of nuclear negotiations, while the US and Israeli envoys said the talks had reached an end point and that there were no further justifications for carrying on with them.

It’s clear that there is very much a divide here on whether these talks should have continued, and what happens at this point now that they are off track.

That is essentially the summation from that very long meeting.

The Iranian Mehr news agency is reporting two explosions in the capital.

We’ll bring you more soon.

The ministry has said the country’s international airport was targeted with a drone, “resulting in material damage without loss of life”.

It said authorities were securing the area.

Several incidents have been reported connected to Iranian strikes in Bahrain, with the US embassy earlier today warning that it considered high-rise buildings unsafe.

The statements we are hearing from sources in Tehran directly contradict the claim made by Trump regarding the alleged death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

Earlier yesterday, Iran’s foreign minister stated in an interview that, to his knowledge, the Supreme Leader, the Iranian President, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and the Speaker of Parliament are all alive. In addition, the head of public relations for the Office of the Supreme Leader posted on social media that these reports are part of “psychological warfare” conducted by Iran’s enemies.

State-affiliated news agencies have also denied the reports, asserting that Ayatollah Khamenei remains steadfast and firmly in command. Furthermore, at least two members of parliament have publicly rejected the claims. Altogether, these statements sharply contradict what we are hearing from Washington.

At this point, the general position in Tehran is a firm denial of the reports.

However, it is important to note that yesterday we heard several massive explosions near the Pasteur neighbourhood — the area where the offices of Iran’s supreme leader and president are located, along with certain military headquarters and universities.

So, we are dealing with an uncertain and fluid situation. From Tehran, there is no official confirmation supporting the claim. If the news were true, it would represent a major turning point and likely cross what many would consider the “reddest of red lines” for the US. In that case, we would expect significant repercussions and possibly an official announcement — either confirming the reports or releasing video footage to refute them.

Here are the latest updates:

• US President Donald Trump claims that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed in US and Israeli strikes on the country. Iranian officials have denied the claim, with Khamenei’s office calling it “psychological warfare”.
• The US and Israel have both said they will continue attacks for the foreseeable future, even as regional countries appeal for an end to the fighting.
• Iran’s ambassador to the UN says Tehran considers strikes on all US and Israeli bases and other installations across the region part of its self-defence, showing no signs of stopping its attacks.
• New barrages have been reported across the region in recent hours, including in Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
• Abu Dhabi Airports has said one person was killed in an incident at the Zayed international airport.
• The death toll in an attack on a girls’ school in Minab in southern Iran has risen to 115, according to local authorities.

The board ⁠of ⁠governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency will hold an emergency ⁠meeting on Monday at 08:00 GMT to discuss the ongoing US and Israeli ‌strikes on Iran.

The meeting was requested by Russia. Any board member ⁠can call a ⁠meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog.

Monday’s emergency meeting will start an hour before a ⁠long-scheduled quarterly meeting of the board, in which ⁠Iran’s nuclear programme was already on the agenda.

Diplomats have said ‌there was no indication Iranian nuclear facilities were struck ‌in ‌Saturday’s attack, unlike US strikes on Iran last year, which targeted three nuclear sites.

The US has said in a lengthy statement that the president is convinced that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead, as well as a large number of Iranian leaders, in these ongoing attacks.

He has also indicated some form of timeline, saying that the US will continue its operations along with Israel as long as it is necessary.

It’s also interesting that he claimed some members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, who may be disillusioned with the leadership, may be joining civilians in the streets. But this could be wishful thinking on the side of the US administration for now.

He’s been making similar statements to various media outlets here.

Maged Abdelaziz, the group’s representative to the UN, has also addressed the Security Council, saying Israel sought to start a regional war to continue its occupation of Palestinian and denial of Palestinian statehood.

“The Security Council convenes today at a pivotal moment in the history of the United Nations, a moment that unfortunately represents a glaring failure of the multilateral international system, a failure the League of Arab States has long warned against,” Abdelaziz said.

“Israel seeks, through this escalation, to evade ending its occupation of Palestinian territories, to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and to obstruct Palestine’s admission to the UN in implementation of the two-state solution and the core principles of international legitimacy,” he added.

The governor of Minab, a city in southern Iran, has announced that the death toll from the US-Israeli bombing of a school has risen to 115.