Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed in a series of US-Israeli strikes across Iran, Donald Trump has said.
The US and Israel struck dozens of targets in the attacks, including the supreme leader’s compound. Iranian authorities say the strikes killed at least hundreds of people on Saturday morning.
Trump confirmed Khamenei’s death after a senior Israeli government source told The Independent that the clerical ruler, who has overseen Iran’s transformation into one of the Middle East’s dominant powers since 1989, was killed in the strike that flattened his compound.
His death ends 37 years of the clerical ruler’s leadership of Iran, in which he oversaw its transition into one of the Middle East’s major powers.
“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” the US president wrote on Truth Social, adding that it is the “single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country”.
He added: “This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS.”
Here, The Independent looks at the different groups who form Iran’s fragmented opposition and who could vie for the Iranian leadership in the event of a power vacuum.
The People’s Mujahideen Organisation
The remnants of the once-powerful leftist militant group which bombed the Shah’s government and US targets in the 1970s still wield a degree of influence in Iran, and now advocate for the overthrow of the Iranian government.
Known by its Persian name, the Mujahideen-e Khalq Organisation (MEK or MKO), the group fell out with the other factions alongside which it deposed the Iranian Shah and replaced the Imperial State of Iran with the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.
But the Mujahideen soon developed large numbers of enemies in Iran after siding with Iraq during the war of 1980-88.
Massoud Rajavi, its former leader, remains in exile and has not been seen for more than 20 years. His wife, Maryam Rajavi, is now in control, but the group has shown little evidence of activity within Iran’s border for years.
Instead, the group is the driving force behind the National Council of Resistance of Iran, led by Ms Rajavi, which has an active presence in many Western countries.
The Mujahideen has been criticised by rights groups for what they describe as cult-like behaviour and the abuse of its followers, but the group denies these allegations.
The monarchists
When revolution swept through Iran in 1979, transforming the country into an Islamic Republic, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi – Iran’s last Shah – fled the country. He died just a year later in Egypt in 1980.
Reza Pahlavi, his son, was heir to the Iranian throne at the time of the revolution. He now lives in the US, from where he calls for regime change through non-violent means and a referendum on a new government.
Following reports Khamenei had been killed, he wrote on X: “Ali Khamenei, the bloodthirsty despot of our time, the murderer of tens of thousands of Iran’s bravest sons and daughters, has been erased from the face of history.
“With his death, the Islamic Republic has in effect reached its end and will very soon be consigned to the dustbin of history.”
This week he staked his claim to lead Iran. In a TV interview he told Fox News that he has the support and mandate necessary to helm a transitional government in Iran.
“The military will side with us, and we have a plan of action and a transition plan,” he said, though experts have cast doubt on the level of sway he holds on the ground in a country he has not lived in for almost half a century. There are also many splits even among pro-monarchist groups in Iran.
Ethnic minority groups
Iran’s Sunni Muslim Kurdish and Baluch minorities have long expressed opposition to Tehran’s Persian-speaking and Shi’ite government.
Kurdish groups have carried out periods of active insurgency against government forces in western areas of Iran, where they form a majority.
Meanwhile in Baluchistan, along the border with Pakistan, opposition ranges from supporters of Sunni clerics to armed jihadists linked to al-Qaeda.
Major protests in Iran have often been the fiercest in the Kurdish and Baluchi areas, but there is no strong, unified resistance against Tehran’s rule.
Leaders of mass protests movements
Mass protest movements have swept Iran at different points for many decades, often with key figureheads at the helm.
Protests in December and January, which began over economic unrest but soon spiralled into anti-regime protests, were met with brutal force by the Iranian regime. Some reports suggested around 30,000 were killed by regime forces.
Whether mass unrest will once again erupt following Khamenei’s death is a matter that remains to be seen. So is the question of whether Tehran’s response would be quite as forceful as it was in January – and who would lead it.
Iran has a history of such protests. After a presidential election in 2009, thousands filled the streets of Tehran and other major cities as they accused authorities of rigging the vote in favour of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who faced an electoral threat from rival candidate and former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Mr Mousavi’s Green Movement was crushed and he was put under house arrest, along with political ally and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karoubi.
The movement, which sought democratic reform within the existing system of the Islamic republic, is now widely seen as defunct.
In 2022, major protests again gripped Iran, centred on women’s rights. Narges Mohammadi, a 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner who served as one of the figureheads, is currently in Iran’s notorious Evin prison.
A power struggle
There are now real concerns about the possibility of a violent power struggle, with Iran now in a power vacuum.
The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) could impose martial law and take control of the country in the short term if the clerical elite are removed from power.
A civil war in Iran would bring serious disorder to the Middle East and risk destabilising Iraq, Turkey and potentially Pakistan.
Trump need only look at Afghanistan and Libya for examples of the danger of ousting a regime without an obvious plan for a transition to liberal democracy.
