Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei dies following Israel-U.S. strike in Tehran

Iran’s hardline and hardline supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled the Islamic Republic for more than three decades and oversaw an era of harsh internal repression and confrontation with the United States and Israel, has died following the Israeli strike in Tehran, with his compound reduced to rubble, a senior Israeli official told Fox News Digital.

“Khamenei was the longest-serving autocrat in the contemporary Middle East,” Behnam Ben Taleblou, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy’s Iran Program, told Fox News Digital. “He did not get there by being a gambler. Khamenei was an ideologue, but he relentlessly sought to preserve and protect his ideology, often taking two steps forward and one step back.”

He added, “Khamenei’s worldview was shaped by his extreme anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, which first manifested in his protests against the Shah of Iran.”

View of Iranian President Ali Khamenei during the welcoming ceremony for his state visit, Beijing, China, May 11, 1989. (Forrest Anderson/Getty Images)

Born on April 19, 1939 in Mashhad. Eastern IranKhamenei was among the Islamic activists who played a central role in the 1979 revolution that overthrew the US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. A close ally of Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khamenei rose through the new regime and served as president from 1981 to 1989 before becoming supreme leader after Khomeini’s death in the same year.

After decades in power, Khamenei has consolidated his control over Iran’s political and security system, overseeing repeated crackdowns on dissent and maintaining a hard-line stance toward Washington and Jerusalem.

Lisa Daftary, an expert on Iranian affairs and editor-in-chief of Foreign Desk magazine, said, “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule has been characterized by brutality and relentless repression, both inside Iran and outside its borders.” She pointed to executions and the imposition of strict social controls as defining features of the regime under Khamenei.

But his ultra-conservative leadership style faced challenges. In 2009, following disputed elections in which Khamenei declared incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner, massive protests erupted across the country.

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In this photo taken by someone not working for the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran, Iranians protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by morality police, in Tehran, on October 1, 2022. (Associated Press)

Mass demonstrations It also erupted in 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, while in the custody of morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab inappropriately. The protests were brutally suppressed, with many arrested and executed by his regime.

In late December, Iran was once again rocked by protests and a ferocious security response. According to an investigation by Iran International, as many as 30,000 people may have been killed over two days, from January 8 to 9, 2026.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (left) meets with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during his visit to Tehran, Iran on October 22, 2016. (Gathering/Press Office of the Supreme Leader/Anadolu Agency/Getty Image)

International observers and human rights groups have repeatedly documented large numbers of executions in Iran in recent years as well. Amnesty International said that Iranian authorities executed more than 1,000 people in 2025, describing this as the highest annual number recorded by the organization in at least 15 years. Separately, a UN report said Iran executed at least 975 people in 2024, the highest number since 2015.

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Iranians gather as a street is blocked during a protest in Tehran, Iran on January 9, 2026. (Mahsa/Middle East Pictures/AFP via Getty Images)

Across the region, Khamenei has invested heavily in Iran’s network of allied militias and armed groups, a strategy used to project Iranian power beyond its borders. From the West Bank and Gaza, where he supported terrorist groups such as Hamas to Hezbollah In Lebanon and Houthi extremists in Yemen, as well as other armed militias in Iraq, Iran under Khamenei’s leadership has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on terrorist groups.

but, Dear agentsBashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria collapsed under Israeli military pressure following the attack on October 7, 2023. During a 12-day war in June 2025, Israel also succeeded in eliminating some of Khamenei’s closest aides and senior security figures, significantly weakening the long-serving leader.

However, analysts say Khamenei’s most lasting legacy may be the institutional machinery he built at home to protect the regime.

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Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei appears in public for the first time in weeks with new US threats. (Iranian Supreme Leader Credit Bureau/Associated Press)

A recent United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) report, written by Saeed Golkar and Kasra Arabi, describes the House, Office of the Supreme Leaderas a parallel structure rooted in Iran’s military, economy, religious institutions, and bureaucracy.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Arabi said: “It is the hidden nerve center of the regime in Iran… It operates as a state within a state.” He said that even the removal of Khamenei would not necessarily lead to the dismantling of the regime. “Even if he is removed, the house as an institution enables the Supreme Leader to perform his job,” Orabi said, adding, “Think of the Supreme Leader as an institution and not just a single individual.”

Al-Arabi also warned:Eliminating Khamenei in isolation “It alone is not enough,” he said, calling for a broader strategy targeting the broader apparatus surrounding the Supreme Leader. “You have to dismantle this vast apparatus that he created,” he said.

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“Unlike Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic Republic, Khamenei institutionalized his power,” added Ben Taleblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy. “Today, the Islamic Republic is more a product of Khamenei than of Khomeini.”

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