Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei killed, Reuters and Israeli media report
The Reuters news agency and Israeli media are reporting Khamenei’s killing, citing unnamed “senior” Israeli officials.
The head of public relations at the Iranian supreme leader’s office accused the country’s enemies of “mental warfare” after Israeli reports Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed, Iranian state media reported.
Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has issued this stern warning to the US and Israel as they continue to attack targets throughout the country.
“The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will give an unforgettable lesson to the international oppressive hellish ones”, he said, according to the official news agency IRNA.
IRGC mourns ‘great leader’, vows revenge
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has responded to Khamenei’s death, saying “we have lost a great leader and we mourn him”, according to a statement carried by Fars news agency.
It added that Khamenei’s “martyrdom at hands of the most vicious terrorists and executioners of humanity is a sign of the legitimacy of this great leader and the acceptance of his sincere services”.
It added that the “Iranian nation’s hand of revenge…will not let them go”.
The IRGC will stand “firm in confronting domestic and foreign conspiracies,” the statement said.
Trump says war can ‘go long’ or end in a few days
United States President Donald Trump has told the Axios news site that there are several “off ramps” for the US-Israel war with Iran.
“I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: ‘See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes],” Trump said in a five-minute phone interview from Mar-a-Lago, according to the news site.
“In any case, it will take them several years to recover from this attack”, he said.
It was not immediately clear what terms Trump was suggesting that would lead to a swift end of the war, although his statements appeared to suggest some opening for diplomacy.
Trump said he decided to launch the strikes despite ongoing nuclear talks for two reasons, one being that the “Iranians got close and then pulled back”, which he said showed they “don’t really want a deal”.
He also said he asked his team to compile every Iran-linked attack over the last 25 years.
“I saw that every month they did something bad, blew something up or killed someone”, he said.
(News Source: Aljazeera)
