Joint US-Israeli military offensive targeting Iranian leadership begins. Coordinated strikes hit multiple sites across Tehran simultaneously.
Precision strikes target senior leadership infrastructure. The Supreme Leader's residence office — not a bunker — is struck directly.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, 86, killed at his residence office in Tehran. 36 years of absolute rule ends in an instant.
Daughter, son-in-law, and three grandchildren also killed in the strike. Daughter-in-law Zahra Haddad-Adel killed.
Minister of Defense killed in the same wave of strikes, decapitating the military command structure.
Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps killed. The IRGC's top military leadership decapitated.
Chief of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff killed alongside the Supreme Leader.
Senior strategic adviser to the Supreme Leader killed. The inner circle of Iranian power is obliterated.
Khamenei's wife survives the initial strike but dies from her injuries three days later on March 2, 2026.
Iranian civilians killed in the broader campaign, including 194 children. 8 US service members killed. 13 killed in Israel. 14 killed in Gulf states.
The second Supreme Leader of Iran, he held absolute power for 36 years — longer than most of his subjects had been alive. He outlasted the Cold War, multiple US presidents, and every attempt to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"Ali Khamenei ruled with an iron fist, suppressing dissent, advancing the nuclear program, and projecting Iranian power through proxy forces across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza."
— NPR
He crushed the 2009 Green Movement, oversaw the construction of Iran's nuclear infrastructure, and built Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias into a regional proxy network. He survived assassination attempts, international sanctions, and every effort to isolate Iran. In the end, it took a precision military strike by the most advanced air forces in history to end his rule.
For decades, he was the most powerful man in Iran that the world had never heard of. The gatekeeper. The enforcer. The shadow behind the throne. Now he is the state.
Mojtaba Khamenei was, for three decades, the invisible hand of Iranian power. While his father received foreign dignitaries and issued fatwa, Mojtaba controlled access — who could see the Supreme Leader, what information reached his desk, which officials rose and which were sidelined.
His role was never officially defined. He held no cabinet post, won no election, appeared in no state ceremonies. Yet every senior official, every IRGC commander, every cleric with ambitions understood that to reach the Supreme Leader, you passed through Mojtaba first.
He served in the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq War, studied at Qom, and spent the following decades as the supreme gatekeeper of Iranian statecraft. His ties to the IRGC — the military-economic empire that controls roughly 40% of Iran's GDP — made him the preferred candidate when the succession crisis opened.
The IRGC didn't just prefer him. They installed him.
From the moment the strikes hit, the clock was running. Iran's constitution required the Assembly of Experts to convene and elect a new Supreme Leader. In normal times, this would take weeks of deliberation. These were not normal times. The IRGC had a candidate. They had leverage. They moved fast.
US-Israeli strikes kill Ali Khamenei, his family, and Iran's senior military leadership in coordinated attacks on Tehran. The Supreme Leader is confirmed dead at his residence office. Power vacuum opens immediately. The IRGC, despite losing its top commander Pakpour, retains operational continuity through its vast institutional structure.
The Iranian government officially confirms the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. State television broadcasts mourning ceremonies. Underneath the public grief, emergency sessions begin behind closed doors. Iran's constitutional process requires the Assembly of Experts to convene. The IRGC begins taking stock of its position — and its candidate.
Khamenei's wife, Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, dies from injuries sustained in the February 28 strikes. The death deepens the atmosphere of national mourning — and intensifies pressure on the Assembly to act quickly. Meanwhile, international strikes continue. Iran's oil infrastructure is being targeted. The Strait of Hormuz situation deteriorates.
IRGC commanders begin what Iran International would later describe as "repeated contacts and psychological and political pressure" on members of the Assembly of Experts, pushing them to support Mojtaba Khamenei. An emergency online session of the Assembly is convened — the first ever held virtually, necessitated by wartime security concerns. The lobbying has already begun.
Four days of intense backroom pressure. IRGC-affiliated networks contact Assembly members individually. Some clerics resist — Mojtaba has never held public office, lacks Khomeini's revolutionary credentials, and represents a dangerous dynastic precedent. But the IRGC is the most powerful institution left standing. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude is at $119.50. Bahrain has declared force majeure. The Assembly votes under the shadow of an ongoing war that Iran is losing.
The Assembly of Experts announces Mojtaba Khamenei as the third Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Eight days after his father's death, the shadow becomes the state. A 56-year-old cleric who never won an election, never held a cabinet post, and was unknown to most Iranians now controls the nuclear program, the IRGC, the judiciary, and the state. The succession is complete. The war continues.
The Supreme Leader controls everything — the military, the courts, the nuclear program, the state media. Below him, the IRGC functions as both a military force and an economic empire. The Assembly of Experts is constitutionally tasked with overseeing the Supreme Leader — but in practice, it does what it's told. Toggle to see what changed.
A new Supreme Leader has been installed. The war continues. The threats are explicit. The economic damage is severe. Iran's theocratic system has survived a decapitation strike — but what it looks like now, and whether it can hold, remains the defining question of the moment.
Israel has explicitly threatened to kill any replacement for Khamenei. Mojtaba ascends to power with a direct targeting threat from the same military that killed his father — and his wife.
President Trump stated the war may only end when Iran's "military and leaders have been wiped out." Mojtaba is, by definition, exactly the kind of leader that condition targets.
Brent crude hit $119.50/barrel and settled around $113. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. Bahrain's BAPCO declared force majeure. Israel struck Iranian oil storage facilities. Global shipping is disrupted.
Iran launched retaliatory strikes on Israel. 14 killed in Gulf state attacks. Regional escalation continues. Iran's proxy networks in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria remain active — their future under Mojtaba unclear.