Ayatollah Khamenei a bitter enemy of the West who ruled Iran with an iron fist for decades
Iran’s supreme leader had survived in that position for 36 years. His death represents a crushing blow to the Islamic regime.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, was an inveterate foe of the West, crushinginternal opposition while supporting proxy forces around the region in the hope of making his country respected and feared.
US President Donald Trump confirmed on social media that Khamenei had been killed in an airstrike on Saturday, describing him as “one of the most evil people in history”. Satellite images showed significant damage to the Iranian leader’s Tehran compound, one of the first targets of the bombing campaign.
Khamenei’s death represents a massive blow to the Islamic Republic that he had led since 1989, a decade after rising to prominence in the theocratic revolution that toppled Iran’s monarchy and rocked the Middle East.
He had survived foreign pressure before but, even before Saturday’s attack, was facing the gravest crisis of his 36-year rule, attempting to spin out negotiations with the United States over Iran’s nuclear program.
