{"id":497249,"date":"2026-03-01T09:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T09:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/497249\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T09:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T09:35:08","slug":"iran-begins-40-day-mourning-after-khamenei-killed-in-us-israeli-attack-israel-iran-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/497249\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran begins 40-day mourning after Khamenei killed in US-Israeli attack | Israel-Iran conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen to this article\u00a0|\u00a05 mins<\/p>\n

info<\/p>\n

Iran has begun 40 days of mourning after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a> was killed in ongoing attacks by the United States and Israel, according to Iranian state media.<\/p>\n

Top security officials were also killed in Saturday\u2019s strikes, along with Khamenei\u2019s daughter, son-in-law and grandson. The killings mark one of the most significant blows to Iran\u2019s leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution.<\/p>\n

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President Masoud Pezeshkian condemned the killing as \u201ca great crime\u201d, according to a statement from his office. He\u00a0also declared seven days of public holidays in addition to the 40-day mourning period.<\/p>\n

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera\u2019s Tohid Asadi said people were pouring into the streets of the capital following the news of Khamenei\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be expected ceremonies,\u201d he said, noting they would likely take place amid continuing bombardment across the country.<\/p>\n

\"Iran'sPeople mourn at the Enghelab Square in Tehran [Majid Asgaripour\/West Asia News Agency via Reuters]<\/p>\n

Protests denouncing Khamenei\u2019s killing were also reported elsewhere, including Shiraz, Yasuj and Lorestan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be expected ceremonies,\u201d he said, noting they would likely take place amid continuing bombardment across the country.<\/p>\n

Footage aired by Iranian state media showed supporters mourning at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, with several people seen crying and collapsing in grief.<\/p>\n

The killing also led to protests in neighbouring Iraq, which declared three days of public mourning. In Baghdad, protesters confronted security forces in the heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government buildings and foreign embassies.<\/p>\n

Videos verified by Al Jazeera showed demonstrators waving flags and shouting slogans, with witnesses saying some were attempting to mobilise towards the US Embassy. Footage also showed protesters blocking vehicles at a roundabout near one of the entrances to the area.<\/p>\n

\"SupportersProtesters demonstrate near the entrance of the Green Zone after the killing of Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Baghdad, Iraq, March 1, 2026 [Thaier Al-Sudani\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

There was also a protest in the Pakistani city of Karachi, where footage, verified by Al Jazeera, showed people setting fire to and smashing the windows of the US consulate.<\/p>\n

However, there have also been reports of celebrations in Iran, with the Reuters news agency quoting witnesses as saying some people had taken to the streets in Tehran, the nearby city of Karaj and the central city of Isfahan.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the official IRNA news agency reported that a three-person council, consisting of the country\u2019s president, the chief of the judiciary, and one of the jurists of the Guardian Council, will temporarily assume all leadership duties in the country. The body will temporarily oversee the country until a new supreme leader is elected.<\/p>\n

Khamenei assumed leadership of Iran in 1989 following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Islamic revolution a decade earlier.<\/p>\n

While Khomeini was regarded as the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the Pahlavi monarchy, Khamenei went on to shape Iran\u2019s military and paramilitary apparatus<\/a>, strengthening both its domestic control and its regional influence.<\/p>\n

Attacks across the region<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pledged revenge and said it had launched strikes on 27 bases hosting US troops in the region, as well as Israeli military facilities in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

Explosions have continued to be reported in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, while security alerts are in place in several countries across the region.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump, in a social media post on Sunday, warned Iran that it would be hit \u201cwith a force that has \u2060never\u00a0been\u00a0seen before\u201d if it retaliated.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s retaliatory attacks since Saturday have targeted Israel and US assets across multiple Middle East countries, including Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.<\/p>\n

Harlan Ullman, chairman of the strategic advisory firm Killowen Group and an adviser to the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, said the US may have made a \u201cbig mistake\u201d by killing Khamenei.<\/p>\n

\u201cDecapitation only works when you get all the leaders, and I don\u2019t think that we got all the leaders,\u201d Ullman said, adding that the US should not expect Iran\u2019s leadership to enter negotiations in the immediate aftermath.<\/p>\n

Iranian state media reported on Saturday at least 201 people have been killed in the joint US-Israeli attacks across 24 provinces, citing the Red Crescent. In southern Iran, at least 148 people were killed and 95 wounded in a strike on an elementary girls\u2019 school in Minab on Saturday, with the toll continuing to rise, according to state media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article\u00a0|\u00a05 mins info Iran has begun 40 days of mourning after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2420,801,14945,158239,2562,129,3,29717,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-497249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-government","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-iraq","12":"tag-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps","13":"tag-israel-iran-conflict","14":"tag-middle-east","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-tv-news","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}