Trump announces Khamenei’s death
By FWIW:
President Trump announced on Saturday that the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran had killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation’s supreme leader for almost 37 years and an implacable enemy of Israel and the United States, in a potentially seismic political shift in Tehran and the broader region.
“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. He added: “He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had said earlier that there were “many indications” that Ayatollah Khamenei was dead, but stopped short of making a definitive statement.
Iranian officials at first dismissed such claims as bravado or psychological warfare. The ayatollah’s official account on X later posted a photo rich with Shia religious symbolism, of a faceless clerical figure holding a flaming sword.
Israeli officials said several of Iran’s most senior military leaders had also been killed, including Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, the chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most powerful force in Iran; the defense minister, Gen. Aziz Nasrizadeh; and Ali Shamkhani, former head of the Iranian navy and a close adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei.
It was not immediately clear which country’s forces had killed Ayatollah Khamenei, but either way, the action exhibited a high degree of coordination between the United States and Israel. Israel’s military said it had targeted a gathering of senior Iranian officials in the opening strikes. Satellite imagery showed a plume of smoke and extensive damage at the supreme leader’s high-security compound.
The social media post Trump used for the announcement is a, er, rich text (or should I say Rich Text):
The bombing will continue until we get peace, indeed.