Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was only the second leader of Iran’s Islamic Republic, established in April 1979.
He took over from the regime’s founding figurehead, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, when he died just over 10 years later, in June 1989.
Iran’s supreme leader has the final say in all matters of state.
Therefore Khamenei’s death, after almost 37 years in power, marks a major transition.
Iran latest: Ayatollah Khamenei killed
Which senior leaders have died?
In addition to Khamenei, several other senior officials were killed in US/Israeli airstrikes too.
They include Iran’s army chief of staff, General Abdol Rahim Mousavi, and defence minister General Aziz Nasirzadeh.
Also killed was Major General Mohammad Pakpour, who took over as the Revolutionary Guard’s top commander after Israel killed its last commander last June, and Ali Shamkhani, a top security adviser to Khamenei.
Iranian media said Khamenei’s daughter, grandchild, son-in-law and daughter-in-law were killed as well.
What happens now?
A three-person temporary leadership council has been formed to govern the country, in line with Islamic Republic law.
It includes Iran’s reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and the hard-line head of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei.
There will also be a jurist, Alireza Arafi, who is a member of Iran’s Guardian Council and head of the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary force.
Ali Larijani, Iran’s head of security, said the council would be set up on Sunday.
“We had prepared for such moments and have plans in place for all scenarios, even for the time after the martyrdom of revered Imam Khamenei,” said Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker.
He added: “You’ll see that after the leadership council is formed, the power and integrity of officials, defensive forces and the people will be beyond imagination.”
Who chooses the new leader?
While the leadership council will govern in the interim, an 88-member panel called the Assembly of Experts will pick a new leader. Under Iranian law, that must happen as soon as possible.
The panel is made up of Shiite clerics elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council.
The Guardian Council is known for disqualifying candidates. It barred former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani from election to the Assembly of Experts in March 2024.
A relative moderate, he struck the JCPOA nuclear deal with world powers in 2015, from which the US, under Donald Trump, later withdrew.
Who could be the new supreme leader?
Under Iran’s system of vilayat-e faqih – guardianship of the Islamic jurist – the supreme leader must be a cleric.
Khamenei’s power was often wielded through close advisers. But it is unclear how many have survived, and he was never publicly recorded as naming a successor.
His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a 56-year-old cleric, has been seen as a possible successor. He has never held government office, however.
It had been thought that former president Ebrahim Raisi might seek the leadership, but he died in a helicopter crash in May 2024.
Regime change?
Donald Trump is urging Iranians to take the opportunity to overthrow the Islamic Republic, which has been accused of murdering tens of thousands of its own citizens in recent weeks.
The US president has described the death of Khamenei as the “single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country”.
And he has claimed that many people in the Revolutionary Guard, military and other security and police forces “no longer want to fight”.
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How have Iranians reacted to death of supreme leader?
Before the Iranian revolution Iran was ruled by a monarchy, with the king called the “shah”.
Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of the shah who was deposed in the 1979 revolution has said: “With (Khamenei’s) death, the Islamic Republic has in effect reached its end and will very soon be consigned to the dustbin of history.”
Any attempts to appoint a successor to Khamenei are “doomed to fail from the outset”, Pahlavi added, claiming they will have neither longevity nor legitimacy.
He has urged Iran’s military, law enforcement and security forces to take their “final opportunity to join the nation”.
