Israeli officials are claiming Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s body has been found
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there are growing signs that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died.
The Israeli Premier said that there was growing evidence the man he called “the dictator” had been killed in the US Israeli airstrikes carried out on Saturday and for which Iran retaliated with strikes across the region.
Other Israeli officials have claimed that the Iranian Supreme Leader’s body had been found. Other sources are said to have claimed that Israel’s ambassador had told the US that Khamenei was killed in the strike on his compound in the Iranian capital Tehran.
Israel’s media is widely reporting that Israeli officials are claiming that Khamenei is dead.
BBC Verity previously shared satellite images which it said showed significant damage to the property where Khamenei’s offices were based. It said the image, captured by Airbus, showed smoke rising from blackened buildings strewn with debris.
Iran’s leader has not spoken since the attacks although a senior member of the regime, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, previously said he believed he was alive and well.
Speaking earlier on Saturday, Araghchi said that the US Israeli strikes may have killed “one or two commanders” but he said that Khamenei, is “alive” as far as he is aware.
The BBC’s Persian service said that people in Tehran were celebrating, cheering the leader’s death by honking horns, screaming in celebration.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has led Iran since 1989 as head of state and commander in chief with authority over the national police, morality police and the feared Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is in charge of internal security, and its volunteer wing, the Basij Resistance Force.