Iranian state media confirmed that Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died, following US-Israeli airstrikes.
“To Allah we belong and to Him we shall return,” the news agency said on Saturday evening, after reporting that several members of the leader’s family had been killed.
Hours earlier, President Donald Trumpannounced that Khamenei, 86, had died, describing him as “one of the most evil people in History.”
It comes after Trump announced that the U.S. and Israel had begun “major combat operations” in Iran in order to dismantle the nation’s nuclear program and decapitate its leadership.
At least 108 people were killed in a strike on a girls’ primary school in southern Iran, most of whom were children, the local governor said. The Iranian Red Crescent says at least 201 were killed in the US-Israeli strikes, according to Iranian media.
Iranian forces retaliated by bombarding U.S. and Israeli military bases across the Middle East, including in Dubai and Qatar, prompting fears of a broader conflict. Iranian officials have characterized the strikes on them as illegal and called for the U.S. and Israel to be held accountable.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed while he was in his office, according to Iranian state media.
“The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution of Iran was martyred at his workplace in the Beit Rahbari (his compound),” state news agency IRIB said on its Telegram account.
“He was carrying out his assigned duties and present at his place of work (his office) at the moment of martyrdom, and this attack took place in the early hours of Saturday morning.”
With his large-scale attack on Iran, Trump has seized a legacy-defining moment to demonstrate his readiness to exercise raw U.S. military power.
But in doing so, he is also taking the biggest foreign policy gamble of his presidency, one fraught with risks and unknowns.
The death of Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei marks a major achievement for the operation but also leaves unanswered questions about the future of the Islamic Republic.
Trump has so far provided little explanation to the American public for what could become the biggest U.S. military campaign since Afghanistan and Iraq.
The president, who came to office last year promising to avoid “stupid wars,” has also set out a daunting objective of regime change in Tehran, pushing the idea that air strikes can incite a popular uprising to oust Iran’s rulers.
It is an outcome that air power has never directly achieved in other conflicts without the involvement of an armed force on the ground. Many analysts doubt it will succeed this time in Iran.
MDW Live! News Network 
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