Iran confirms Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei killed in Tehran strike

Iran confirmed the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He was killed in an attack the previous day in Tehran by Israel and the United States. Forty days of mourning were declared. The confirmation made the death an official Iranian statement rather than an outside claim alone.

The supreme leader is the highest office in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A mourning period of 40 days is the span the state announced after the confirmation. Tehran is the capital, and the report placed the fatal attack there. Israel and the United States were named as the attackers.

Key officials Abdolrahim Mousavi, Aziz Nasirzadeh, Mohammad Pakpour, and Ali Shamkhani were also confirmed killed. They died in an airstrike during a meeting the previous day in Tehran. The report listed those four by name alongside the supreme leader's death. It presented their deaths as confirmed, not as rumor.

Reports alleged that former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was killed with his bodyguards in a strike on his home in Narmak. A close advisor then confirmed that Ahmadinejad is alive, contrary to those reports. The day's record therefore distinguished a confirmed death, Khamenei's, from an allegation that was withdrawn by someone close to Ahmadinejad. Some Iranians grieved while others in the country celebrated Khamenei's death. In Galleh Dar a monument of Ruhollah Khomeini was toppled, and a statue in Dehloran was toppled.

The same day reached beyond the capital. Nine people were killed and 49 wounded in an Iranian ballistic missile strike on a synagogue in Beit Shemesh, in Israel's Jerusalem District. United States Central Command said three American service members were killed and five seriously wounded in an Iranian missile strike. United States forces sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Jamaran off Chabahar Port. High-ranking clerics in Iran declared jihad against Israel and the United States and issued a fatwa against them.

Iran's confirmation fixed Ali Khamenei's death and opened 40 days of mourning. Four other named officials were confirmed killed in the Tehran meeting strike. Ahmadinejad was reported dead and then confirmed alive by a close advisor. Strikes, a sunk frigate, American military deaths, and a clerical call to jihad filled the rest of the reported day.