Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled the Islamic Republic for more than three decades, has died following an Israeli strike in Tehran.
Israeli leaders confirmed Khamenei compound and offices were reduced to rubble early Saturday after a targeted strike in downtown Tehran.
“Khamenei was the contemporary Middle East’s longest-serving autocrat. He did not get to be that way by being a gambler. Khamenei was an ideologue, but one who ruthlessly pursued the preservation and protection of his ideology, often taking two steps forward and one step back,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of FDD’s Iran program, told Fox News Digital.
“Khamenei’s worldview was shaped by his militant anti-Americanism and antisemitism, which first manifested itself in his protests against the Shah of Iran,” he added.
Born April 19, 1939, in Mashhad, eastern Iran, Khamenei was among the Islamist activists who played a central role in the 1979 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
A close ally of Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khamenei rose through the new system and served as president from 1981 to 1989 before becoming supreme leader after Khomeini’s death that same year.
Over decades in power, Khamenei consolidated control over Iran’s political and security system, presiding over repeated crackdowns on dissent and maintaining a hardline posture toward Washington and Israel.
However, his prized proxies, as well as the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, collapsed under Israeli military pressure following the October 7, 2023, attack.
During a 12-day war in June 2025, Israel also succeeded in taking out some of Khamenei’s closest aides and senior security figures, leaving the long-serving leader significantly weakened.
