Iranian state TV said the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died.
State TV gave no cause for the 86-year-old’s death, with the announcement following joint US-Israeli strikes on the country.
It comes after US President Donald Trump claimed Khamenei had died in the attacks on Saturday morning and urged the Iranian people to seize “the single greatest chance … to take back their country”.
The UK Government has not yet commented on reports of the Ayatollah’s death, but shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel said: “No-one should shed any tears for the death of Khamenei.”
Saturday’s attack prompted retaliation from Iran, with strikes reported in several Gulf countries including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Hundreds of thousands of British nationals are believed to be present in the Gulf, and those in Bahrain, Israel, Palestine, Qatar and the UAE have been urged to register their presence with the Foreign Office.
The death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after almost 37 years in power raises paramount questions about Iran’s future. The contours of a complex succession process began to take shape the morning after Khamenei’s assassination.
Temporary leadership council
As outlined in its constitution, Iran on Sunday formed a council to assume leadership duties and govern the country.
The council is made up of Iran’s sitting president, the head of the country’s judiciary and a member of the Guardian Council chosen by Iran’s Expediency Council, which advises the supreme leader and settles disputes with parliament.
Iran’s reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and hard-line judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, are its members who will step in and “temporarily assume all the duties of leadership.”
Panel of clerics
Though the leadership council will govern in the interim, an 88-member panel called the Assembly of Experts “must, as soon as possible” pick a new supreme leader under Iranian law.
The panel consists entirely of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog.
