Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed along with senior figures in the country’s leadership in a US-Israeli strike on Saturday.
Early Sunday morning, Iran’s state news agency IRNA confirmed the death of 86-year-old Khamenei. The supreme leader’s daughter, son-in-law and grandson were also killed in the coordinated attack by the US and Israel on Iran.
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Iran’s President Masoud Pezheshkian said Khamenei’s assassination was an “open declaration of war against Muslims,” especially practicing Shiites.
“This tragic event is the biggest trial facing the Islamic world today,” Pezheshkian said in a written message of condolence over the killing of the supreme leader who ruled Iran for three decades.
The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) also confirmed the killing of several other senior figures.
Here are some of them:
Ali Shamkhani
Shamkhani was the Secretary of Iran’s Defense Council and a close advisor to Supreme Leader Khamenei.
The 70-year-old oversaw talks between the United States and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program, the latest round of which concluded on Friday.
“The main point of the talks is that if Iran does not produce nuclear weapons, this is in line with the religious decree issued by the Iranian leader and the country’s defense doctrine, and an immediate agreement can be reached,” Shamkhani said on Thursday.
Shamkhani was also targeted in an Israeli attack in June 2025 during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel. There were reports that he had died in the attack, but it was later confirmed that he survived. He was pulled from the rubble of his home and was severely injured.
He was recently appointed secretary of Iran’s Defense Council, which was created after the war and coordinated Iran’s defense and national security policies, mobilizing resources to address threats.
He headed Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) for a decade until 2023, becoming the second-longest-serving security chief since 1979 after former president Hassan Rouhani, who was SNSC secretary for nearly 16 years.
Abdulraheem Mousavi
Mousavi served as the head of Iran’s armed forces. Khamenei was appointed to the post within days of Israel’s attack on Iran in June last year.
He previously served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Army from 2017 to 2025.
Mousavi is believed to be a key figure working to develop Iran’s ballistic missiles, drone systems and Western-criticized space launches.
In March 2023, the US, along with the European Union, the United Kingdom and Australia, sanctioned Mousavi for serious human rights violations in Iran.
“Iranian military personnel under the command of Mousavi fired machine guns at protesters in November 2019,” the US State Department report said. In November 2019, protests erupted across Iran following the authorities’ sudden decision to raise petrol prices as part of efforts to blunt the effects of crippling US sanctions on the country’s economy.
Aziz Nasirzadeh
Nasirzadeh served as Iran’s Minister of Defense in the Pezheshkian government that came to power after the 2024 elections.
He was previously the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces and served as Commander in the Iranian Air Force from 2018 to 2021.
Amid US and Israeli attacks, Nasirzadeh played a key role in protecting Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure.
In June 2025, when the US and Israel threatened to attack Iran, Nasirzadeh warned that Iran would target US military bases in the region if the US attacked first.
“If a conflict is imposed on us … all US bases are within our reach and we will boldly target them in the host countries,” Nasirzadeh told reporters at the time.
After the June 2025 attack, there were reports that he had been killed, but local journalists later confirmed that he was alive and well.
Nasirzadeh criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. According to Iranian media, in October 2024, during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and attacks across southern Lebanon, he warned: “The resistance will defeat Israel as it did in 2006.” He was referring to Israel’s 34-day armed conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, when Israel was unable to completely dismantle Hezbollah’s influence in the region.
Mohammad Pakpur
Pakpour served as the Commander-in-Chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from June 2025 until his death.
Khamenei appointed Pakpour, a veteran commander who began his career within the elite force last year. He previously led the IRGC’s armed units and ran the combat division during the war with Iraq in the 1980s.
Pakpoor led IRGC ground forces for 16 years before being appointed Commander-in-Chief. He was the deputy commander for operations in the IRGC and headed the force’s two major headquarters.
Who will replace these Iranian officials?
Iran’s state TV reported that a three-person council consisting of Iran’s President Pezheshkian, Supreme Court Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ezee and one of the Guardian Council’s jurists will temporarily assume all leadership duties of the country.
Alireza Arafi, a religious leader in the Guardian Council, has been appointed to Iran’s Leadership Council, an assembly of experts tasked with fulfilling the role of supreme leader until a new leader is elected.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Mazier Motamedi said the IRGC and security chief Ali Larijani were also expected to play key roles.
He noted that while the commander-in-chief of the IRGC was assassinated, IRGC-affiliated Telegram channels were mentioning Deputy Chief Ahmad Vahidi, appointed to the position by Khamenei two months earlier, as a possible candidate.
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