# Ali Khamenei ## The power he actually held Ali Khamenei was Supreme Leader of Iran from 4 June 1989 until 28 February 2026. The constitution makes the Leader commander-in-chief. Presidents from Rafsanjani to Pezeshkian implemented. The IRGC fought. He is not every Basij volunteer. He was killed in a US-Israeli airstrike as the 2026 Iran war opened. Iranian state media confirmed the death on 1 March. Mojtaba Khamenei became Leader on 8 March. This page does not become Mojtaba’s page. Country on this page is Iran. A live row that said Pahlavi Iran is a neighbouring identity error this catalog corrects. ## What went wrong, and what is proven The sharpest civic-space costs that are dated and named are the [2009 Green crackdown](/facts/ir-green-2009), the [2019 fuel-protest killings and shutdown](/facts/ir-nov2019-protests), [Mahsa Amini and Woman, Life, Freedom](/facts/ir-mahsa-2022), and the [January 2026 protest killings](/facts/ir-jan2026-protests). [House arrest of Mousavi and Karroubi](/facts/ir-house-arrest-2011) froze 2009’s opposition. [1988 prison executions](/facts/ir-1988-executions) sit on his presidency under Khomeini’s Leadership. PS752 is a completed IRGC shoot-down he later acknowledged as a ‘great tragedy’. [8 January 2020 missiles on US bases](/facts/ir-ain-asad-2020) are a completed CinC response after Soleimani. [April 2024 strikes on Israel](/facts/ir-apr2024-israel) are a completed direct attack. A [2023 speech after 7 October](/facts/ir-oct7-speech-2023) is a completed political blessing, not a finding that he wrote Hamas’s raid. [JCPOA reductions from 2019](/facts/ir-jcpoa-reduce-2019) are completed steps away from a deal the US had already left. [2025 US nuclear-site strikes](/facts/ir-us-strikes-2025) and the [28 February 2026 war that killed him](/facts/ir-war-2026) are reused live Facts: he owned the nuclear-security file; he did not write the US-Israeli opening order. ## What improved, and how far [UN Security Council resolution 598](/facts/ir-un598-1988) is a completed ceasefire he accepted as president. The [2003 Tehran declaration](/facts/ir-tehran-declaration-2003) and [2004 Paris agreement](/facts/ir-paris-2004) are completed nuclear pauses. [JPOA 2013](/facts/ir-jpoa-2013), [JCPOA 2015](/facts/ir-jcpoa-2015) and [implementation day 2016](/facts/ir-jcpoa-impl-2016) are completed bargains. [Khatami 1997](/facts/ir-khatami-1997), [Rouhani 2013](/facts/ir-rouhani-2013) and [Pezeshkian 2024](/facts/ir-pezeshkian-2024) are completed filtered openings he did not veto. The [2023 Saudi restoration](/facts/sa-iran-restore-2023) is reused from the [Mohammed bin Salman](/people/mohammed-bin-salman) catalog. A [2023 prisoner swap](/facts/ir-prisoner-swap-2023), the [China 25-year partnership](/facts/ir-china-25yr-2021), [COVID vaccination](/facts/ir-covid-vax-2021), and his [1981 presidential oath](/facts/ir-president-1981) are dated. ## Shared responsibility, and what the score does not say The score does not say that every IRGC missile is a personal homicide count. It does not say that JCPOA rebates Mahsa. It does not convert being killed in an airstrike into authorship of that strike. Confidence is high on Leader-office and IAEA texts, and medium where the Guard, proxies, and later casualty series sit between a speech and a welfare indicator. Related people are presidents, adversaries, and counterpart rulers who actually shared files: Pezeshkian, Raisi, Netanyahu, Trump, Biden, Putin, Xi, Nasrallah, Haniyeh, Mohammed bin Salman, Guterres, Erdoğan. Related news and analysis are the 2025 nuclear-site strikes, Iran-Israel confrontation, and proxy-network cluster already in production. Official carriers include the Leader’s office (https://english.khamenei.ir/), IAEA, UN, and contemporaneous Reuters. A Supreme Leader is powerful enough to own those decrees. He is not powerful enough to be the unique author of a US bunker-buster or of Hamas’s 7 October raid, and the dossier keeps that line visible. Keep 2009 off JCPOA. Keep Mahsa off a Saudi handshake. Keep 28 February off a 1988 ceasefire. If those distinctions feel pedantic, they are the alternative to a martyr film and the alternative to a cartoon. ## Dated facts - 2026: A US-Israeli war on Iran begins; Ali Khamenei is killed. https://factrail.ai/facts/ir-war-2026. Sources: https://www.president.ir/, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-israel-war-iran-khamenei-killed-2026-02-28/, https://english.khamenei.ir/. - Security forces crush January 2026 economic protests with mass killings. https://factrail.ai/facts/ir-jan2026-protests. Sources: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-protests-crackdown-january-2026/, https://english.khamenei.ir/. - 2025: The United States strikes three Iranian nuclear sites. https://factrail.ai/facts/ir-us-strikes-2025. Sources: https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4222543/secretary-of-defense-pete-hegseth-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-staff-gen/, https://www.reuters.com/world/us-strikes-iranian-nuclear-sites-2025/. - 2024: Iran launches a second direct missile attack on Israel. https://factrail.ai/facts/ir-oct2024-israel. Sources: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-launches-missiles-israel-2024-10-01/, https://english.khamenei.ir/. - Masoud Pezeshkian wins the 2024 runoff Khamenei’s system does not block. https://factrail.ai/facts/ir-pezeshkian-2024. Sources: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pezeshkian-wins-iran-presidential-runoff-2024-07-06/, https://english.khamenei.ir/. - 2024: Iran launches a direct missile-and-drone attack on Israel. https://factrail.ai/facts/ir-apr2024-israel. Sources: https://apnews.com/article/strait-of-hormuz-vessel-33fcffde2d867380e98c89403776a8ac, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-launches-drone-missile-attack-israel-2024-04-13/. - 2023: Khamenei publicly praises Hamas’s 7 October attack as a correct policy. https://factrail.ai/facts/ir-oct7-speech-2023. Sources: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/irans-khamenei-praises-hamas-attack-israel-2023-10-10/, https://english.khamenei.ir/. - 2023: The United States and Iran complete a prisoner exchange. https://factrail.ai/facts/ir-prisoner-swap-2023. Sources: https://www.reuters.com/world/us-iran-prisoner-swap-2023-09-18/, https://www.state.gov/. - 2023: Saudi Arabia and Iran agree in Beijing to restore diplomatic relations. https://factrail.ai/facts/sa-iran-restore-2023. Sources: https://english.khamenei.ir/, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-saudi-arabia-agree-resume-ties-reopen-embassies-iranian-state-media-2023-03-10/, https://www.spa.gov.sa/. - 2022: Mahsa Amini dies in morality-police custody; nationwide Woman, Life, Freedom protests are crushed. https://factrail.ai/facts/ir-mahsa-2022. Sources: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-62930425, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-death-2022-09-17/. - 2021: Iran and China sign a 25-year comprehensive cooperation agreement. https://factrail.ai/facts/ir-china-25yr-2021. Sources: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-china-idUSKBN2BJ0HF, https://english.khamenei.ir/. - 2021: Iran begins a COVID-19 vaccination campaign after a delayed start. https://factrail.ai/facts/ir-covid-vax-2021. Sources: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-iran-vaccine-idUSKBN2A90N4, https://english.khamenei.ir/. ## Methodology https://factrail.ai/methodology Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/ali-khamenei