A plume of smoke rises following reported explosions in Tehran on March 1, 2026.
Atta Kenare/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Atta Kenare/AFP by way of Getty Photos
AMMAN, Jordan – Iranians and others throughout the Center East awoke Sunday to a area in turmoil following the killing of Iran’s supreme chief in U.S. and Israeli air strikes.
The Iranian authorities, now with out the nation’s non secular chief however with a navy command construction nonetheless seemingly intact, continued strikes on Israel and on U.S. targets in Gulf states, Iraq and Jordan.
Israel’s navy stated it started a brand new wave of assaults in Iran. Explosions had been heard within the Iranian capital Sunday morning. Israel’s navy stated it’s placing targets belonging to “the Iranian terror regime” situated “in the heart of Tehran.” The Israeli air pressure stated it performed large-scale strikes to ascertain air superiority and “pave the path to Tehran.”
Iranian state media Saturday confirmed the loss of life of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, in air strikes focusing on his workplace in Tehran. An Iran state broadcaster delivered the information in tears. Khamenei assumed the place of non secular chief after the loss of life in 1989 of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – chief of Iran’s Islamic revolution.
Iran stated it had established a three-person momentary management council to manipulate the nation beneath Islamic legislation earlier than a panel of Shia clerics chooses a brand new non secular chief.
On Sunday mourners packed Tehran’s Enghelab Sq. and public areas in different cities to mark what they contemplate Khamenei’s martyrdom.
Within the southwestern metropolis of Yasuj, movies posted to social media confirmed a big crowd chanting ‘the lion of God has been killed’. NPR couldn’t independently confirm the movies.
Iran stated the assault additionally killed Khamenei’s daughter, grandchild, daughter-in-law and son-in-law. It stated Armed Forces Chief of Employees Abdolrahim Mousavi and Main Normal Shahid Rezaian, a senior intelligence chief, additionally died in airstrikes.
There was no obvious signal of renewed protests that rocked Iran beginning in December.
Iranian safety forces are believed to have killed 1000’s of demonstrators on the time, after anger over Iran’s monetary disaster was anti-regime protests. U.S. treasury secretary Scott Bessent stated the USA had engineered that monetary disaster.
One Tehran resident stated she and her associates, who’ve joined protests over years, shouted in pleasure from the rooftops once they heard Khamenei had been killed.
She stated one in every of her associates within the metropolis of Karaj close to Tehran was later shot as he and different younger folks danced within the streets.
“The basiji came,” she stated, referring to paramilitary inner safety forces. “He was shot in his back and his leg.” The girl, who requested to be recognized solely as Roxana in worry of regime retaliation, stated her good friend couldn’t go to hospital in worry of arrest.
In Lebanon, the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah introduced a commemoration in Beirut’s southern suburbs to mark the loss of life. Hezbollah had warned it could not let Khamenei’s loss of life go unpunished, however has to date stayed on the sidelines.
In Iraq, the place Iran-backed paramilitaries are a part of official authorities safety forces, the federal government blocked entrances to Baghdad’s inexperienced zone to guard the U.S. and different embassies based mostly there. They deployed riot police in opposition to a gaggle of militia members attempting to breach the barricades.
In Jordan, which discretely hosts main U.S. navy bases, residents woke as much as air raid sirens and the thud of missiles being intercepted.
The oil-rich Gulf, lengthy seen as a secure haven for expatriates and the financial engine for international locations that present most of its expert and un-skilled labor, confronted maybe the most important shocks.
Iran on Saturday and Sunday focused luxurious inns and high-rise residences believed to deal with U.S. personnel. As an alternative of the standard flood of social influencer posts basking within the winter sunshine of Dubai and its neighboring emirates, movies of drones placing high-rise buildings dominated social media feeds. Some photographs confirmed smoke filling a part of the concourse of Dubai’s airport as workers fled the constructing.
The assaults shut down a number of main airport hubs within the Center East, together with Dubai’s worldwide airport, one of many world’s busiest. The airport and the emirate’s famed Burj Al Arab lodge had been broken in Iranian assaults. Different projectiles additionally hit airports in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait.
Iran Sunday threatened its largest wave of assaults but on Israel and U.S. navy bases. It stated that for the reason that begin of its retaliation for Saturday’s strikes, its projectiles had hit 27 U.S. bases within the area, together with an Israeli base and the Israeli military’s normal command headquarters. There was no affirmation of those strikes from the U.S. or Israel.
“There will be no mercy or forgiveness in taking revenge for the leader,” the Iranian ministry of protection stated in a press release.
Iran had additionally made clear Saturday that it could additionally assault transport vessels and different industrial pursuits, and introduced it was closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz, an important waterway for Gulf oil exports.
The OPEC group of oil producing international locations was set to satisfy Sunday to resolve on growing manufacturing, hoping to keep away from a extreme rise in oil costs if provides from the Gulf are restricted by the battle.
President Trump in saying the assaults Saturday had advised Iranians they need to take again their authorities after the strikes had been completed. The killing of Khamenei and widening of Iranian targets pushed Iran’s nuclear services — the U.S. administration’s unique acknowledged purpose for attacking Iran — to the sidelines.
President Trump on Sunday in a put up on “Truth Social” warned Iran in opposition to additional retaliation, writing “THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!”
Trump additionally advised the information outlet Axios in a quick telephone interview: “I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: ‘See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [nuclear and missile programs].”
Carrie Kahn contributed to this report from Istanbul.
