Tehran [Iran], March 2: Iran has begun 40 days of mourning after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in ongoing attacks by the United States and Israel, according to Iranian state media.
Top security officials were also killed in Saturday's strikes, along with Khamenei's daughter, son-in-law and grandson. The killings mark one of the most significant blows to Iran's leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
President Masoud Pezeshkian condemned the killing as "a great crime", according to a statement from Protests denouncing Khamenei's killing were also reported elsewhere, including Shiraz, Yasuj and Lorestan.
"There will be expected ceremonies," he said, noting they would likely take place amid continuing bombardment across the country.
Footage aired by Iranian state media showed supporters mourning at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, with several people seen crying and collapsing in grief.
The killing also led to protests in neighbouring Iraq, which declared three days of public mourning.
In Baghdad, protesters confronted security forces in the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government buildings and foreign embassies.his office. He also declared seven days of public holidays in addition to the 40-day mourning period.
Meanwhile, the official IRNA news agency reported that a three-person council, consisting of the country's president, the chief of the judiciary, and one of the jurists of the Guardian Council, will temporarily assume all leadership duties in the country.
The body will temporarily oversee the country until a new supreme leader is elected.
Ali Larijani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, accused the US and Israel of trying to plunder Iran, in an interview aired on state TV.
He also called on Iranians to unite. "Groups seeking to divide Iran should know that we will not tolerate it," he added.
Khamenei assumed leadership of Iran in 1989 following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Islamic revolution a decade earlier. While Khomeini was regarded as the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the Pahlavi monarchy, Khamenei went on to shape Iran's military and paramilitary apparatus, strengthening both its domestic control and its regional influence.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pledged revenge and said it had launched strikes on 27 bases hosting US troops in the region, as well as Israeli military facilities in Tel Aviv.
US President Donald Trump, in a social media post on Sunday, warned Iran that it would be hit "with a force that has never been seen before" if it retaliated.
Iranian state media reported on Saturday at least 201 people have been killed in the joint US-Israeli attacks across 24 provinces, citing the Red Crescent.
In southern Iran, at least 148 people were killed and 95 wounded in a strike on an elementary girls' school in Minab on Saturday, with the toll continuing to rise, according to state media.Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Source: Qatar Tribune
