Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei ‘gone’ – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjam | World | News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that there are increasing signs that Iran’s religious leader is ‘gone’. BBC Verify said satellite images taken over Tehran this morning showed serious damage to part of the House of Leadership complex, namely Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office.

The high-resolution image taken by Airbus shows blackened buildings, piles of debris and smoke rising from the area and matches verified images taken of the area following the explosions. Conflicting reports have since emerged regarding Khamenei’s fate. Reuters, citing a senior Israeli official, reported that his body had been found, while Axios said Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, told US officials that he was killed in the attack. Israeli broadcasters such as Channel 12 and the Times of Israel have made similar claims. According to a report by The Independent, a senior source in the Israeli government also claimed that the Supreme Leader was killed in the attacks. “They just removed (Khamenei’s) body from his house,” they added.

However, Iranian officials denied the reports; State Department spokesman Esmail Baghaei told ABC News that the religious leader was “safe and sound,” while Seyyed Mehrdad, the public affairs officer for Khamenei’s office, said the reports amounted to “psychological warfare.”

BBC Persian said sources in Tehran described people cheering and honking car horns in various neighborhoods after reports spread that Khamenei had been killed, but that no independent confirmation of his fate had yet occurred.

Earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told NBC News that the country “may have lost one or two commanders” but added that as far as he knew, Khamenei was alive.

There has been no independent statement regarding the fate of the religious leader and the situation remains unclear due to limited information from inside Iran.

In his video statement, Netanyahu stated that Israeli-US attacks destroyed a part of Khamenei’s compound and said, “This morning we destroyed the tyrant Khamenei’s compound,” adding that there were “many signs that this tyrant is no more.”

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He also said Israel had “eliminated senior officials in the ayatollahs’ regime, Revolutionary Guards commanders, senior figures in the nuclear program,” and warned: “In the next few days, we will hit thousands more targets of the terror regime.

The Israeli and US attack on Iran began on Saturday morning; Some of the initial attacks targeted areas near offices used by Khamenei, who had reportedly been moved to a secure location in advance.

Israeli-linked sources cited by international media said Iranian Defense Minister Amir Nasserzadeh and Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammed Pakpour were believed to be among those killed, but this was not independently confirmed.

Iran International also reported that four senior intelligence members – Javad Pourhossein, Mohammad-Reza Bajestani, Ali Kheirandish and Saeed Ehya Hamidi – were killed in the attacks, while Reuters reported that at least three members of the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij paramilitary force were reportedly killed.

Meanwhile, Iran’s security officials have urged residents of Tehran and other major cities to remain in protected areas as the situation continues to evolve, as communications disruptions make it difficult to verify information coming from within the country.