Israel launched Sunday a new wave of airstrikes on Iran, as the country woke up to a reality without its veteran supreme leader killed in U.S. and Israeli attacks a day earlier.
Hours after the U.S. and Israel said an airstrike killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the military campaign to overthrow the government of the Islamic Republic, Iran's state media confirmed the 86-year-old leader had died.
The Israeli military said Sunday that he had been killed in a large-scale operation carried out by its air force.
In another blow for Iran's leaders, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Abdolrahim Mousavi was killed in the strikes, broadcaster Iran TV said.
The United States will hit Iran "with a force that has never been seen before," Trump warned Sunday, if the Middle East nation hits back after the strikes.
"Iran just stated that they are going to hit very hard today, harder than they have ever been hit before," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
He added, "THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!"
Iran's top security official, Ali Larijani, said a temporary leadership council would be set up.
He accused the United States and Israel of trying to plunder and disintegrate Iran and warned "secessionist groups" of a harsh response if they attempt action, state television said.
In remarks directed at Trump and his close ally Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said they had crossed a red line and would "pay for it."
Iran's air force conducted strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq's mostly Kurdish area of the north and Gulf countries, Tasnim news agency reported.
A source briefed on the Israeli campaign told Reuters there had been no change in military strategy after the killing of Khamenei and that strikes would continue to target Iranian officials and missile infrastructure.
Khamenei, who quashed the ambitions of a succession of independent-minded elected presidents who sought more open policies at home and abroad, had a following among fellow Shiites outside Iran in countries such as Iraq, where Tehran-backed armed groups threatened to retaliate after the U.S.-Israel strikes.
Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, expressed condolences over the killing of Khamenei, and urged Iranians to maintain unity in the face of attacks.
Pakistani police fired tear gas Sunday to scatter protesters outside the U.S. consulate in the southern city of Karachi, a Reuters witness said, following news of Khamenei's death.
Global air travel remained heavily disrupted as continued airstrikes kept major Middle Eastern airports, including Dubai – the world's busiest international hub – closed in one of the biggest aviation interruptions in recent years.
Several loud blasts were heard for a second day Sunday in the regional business hub Dubai and over Qatar's capital of Doha, witnesses said, after Iran launched retaliatory strikes on the neighboring Gulf states.
Puffs of white smoke from missile interceptions were glimpsed in the skies over Dubai, while billows of dark smoke rose over its port of Jebel Ali, one of the busiest in the Middle East.
Two people were injured after shrapnel fell from drones following an interception by air defenses over two houses in Dubai, one of several Gulf Arab cities that pride themselves on stability.
Iran, which had said it would target U.S. bases if attacked, hit a range of other targets, keeping the major oil-producing Gulf on edge.
Air raid sirens sounded repeatedly across Israel early on Sunday, with a series of explosions heard in Tel Aviv as Israel’s sophisticated air-defence system sought to intercept the latest Iranian offensive.
There was no immediate report of damage or injuries.
Trump said the airstrikes aimed to end a decades-long threat from Iran and ensure it could not develop a nuclear weapon. He also sought to justify a risky gambit that seemed to contradict his professed opposition to American involvement in complex overseas conflicts.
"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," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump and Netanyahu told Iranians to pursue a rare chance to topple their clerical leaders.
The leadership had already been under pressure from an economy hammered by sanctions, protesters who proved ready again to take to the streets despite fierce crackdowns and regional proxies severely weakened by Israeli attacks.
Israel and the United States timed the attacks to coincide with a meeting of Khamenei and his top aides, said two U.S. sources and a U.S. official familiar with the matter.
Khamenei, who built Iran into a powerful anti-U.S. force and spread its sway across the Middle East during his 36-year iron-fisted rule, was working in his office at the time of Saturday's attack, state media said.
It also killed his daughter, grandchild, daughter-in-law and son-in-law. Experts said that while the deaths of Khamenei and other Iranian leaders would deal the country a major blow, it would not necessarily spell the end of Iran's entrenched clerical rule or the sway of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps over the population.
Trump evoked the 1979 storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, when Iranian student activists in coordination with radical clerics took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, demanding the extradition of the deposed Shah from the United States.
Israel's military said it targeted Iran’s ballistic missile and air-defense systems with strikes on Sunday morning.
Iran's armed forces would soon retaliate again with their biggest offensive against U.S. bases and Israel, the Revolutionary Guards vowed in a statement Sunday.
Iran responded to Saturday's initial attacks by launching hundreds of missiles and drones targeting U.S. troops and cities in Israel and Arab countries allied with Washington, prompting widespread cancellations of Middle East flights.
The Pentagon said there were no U.S. deaths or injuries.
