Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

July 9, 2026 4:09 PM

Iran says it hits US military targets in Gulf, prepares to bury slain leader

Iranian armed forces targeted U.S. military infrastructure in neighbouring Gulf states on Thursday following U.S. strikes on Iran's southern coastal and eastern provinces, putting further strain on a three-week-old ceasefire agreement. Iran was also preparing on Thursday to bury its slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the country's holiest shrine in Mashhad, in the northeast, the culmination of a week of mass funeral processions and rallies. Khamenei was killed in a U.S. airstrike on...

July 3, 2026 4:13 PM

Iran’s slain leader Khamenei laid in state in Tehran for week of mass funeral events

The body of Iran's slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was lying in state in a vast hall in Tehran on Friday as clerics, officials, foreign dignitaries and other mourners paid their respects after his 37-year rule. Iran is staging a week of mass funeral processions for Khamenei — killed in February by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes at the start of a four-month war — in a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic's theocratic state and revolutionary fire. Khamenei's body was expe...

July 2, 2026 9:45 AM

US, Iran talks conclude in Doha, focused on Strait of Hormuz

Iran and the United States concluded a round of indirect talks on Wednesday with no sign they had made headway toward a lasting peace, focusing instead on issues that they said had been resolved when an interim agreement was announced two weeks ago. Sources familiar with the discussions said negotiators for the two countries spent two days in Doha discussing maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and unfreezing Iran's funds, two critical issues under the initial agreement. The next meeting w...

May 14, 2026 11:44 AM

How has the Iran war affected Middle East states?

The war that began on February 28 with a massive Israeli-U.S. bombing campaign against Iran has rocked the entire Middle East, wreaking damage to infrastructure and economies and overturning settled assumptions about regional security. On a second major front, Israel launched a ground invasion and bombing campaign of Lebanon in March in pursuit of Hezbollah fighters after the armed group fired across the border in solidarity with Iran. This is how some countries have been impacted: IRAN The ...

March 24, 2026 11:58 AM

With top figures dead, who is now running Iran?

Iran's veteran supreme leader and a host of other top figures and Revolutionary Guards commanders have been killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes but the ruling system has maintained its ability to strategise and operate in the war that began on February 28. Born from a 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic built a complex power structure with layered institutions buttressed by a shared commitment to the survival of the theocratic system rather than relying on a small number of individuals. IS THE...

March 9, 2026 11:34 AM

Iran defies Trump, elevates Khamenei’s son Mojtaba as successor

Iran's clerical leadership chose confrontation over compromise in appointing Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, a move regional officials say is a direct rebuke to U.S. President Donald Trump, who had declared the son "unacceptable". Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a U.S.-Israeli strike at the start of the conflict, now in its second week. The appointment of Mojtaba as his successor by the Assembly of Experts locks hardliners firmly in control in Tehran -...