So far, Iranian state media have only announced the death of the leader. An official successor is not known. The son of the former Shah, Reza Pahlavi, is repeatedly brought into play in exiled opposition circles.
The Israeli army said it carried out a new wave of attacks against targets in Iran during the night. The army announced during the night that ballistic missile launch sites and the arch-enemy’s air defense systems were targeted. 30 targets were bombed. The army had previously ended another wave of attacks in which, among other things, an important military depot for ballistic missiles was attacked.
Ghadr H-1 ballistic missiles containing hundreds of kilograms of explosives were stored at the missile launch site in the Qom region in central Iran, it said. The attack “significantly weakened” the Iranian leadership’s key offensive capabilities.
After the US and Israeli attacks on Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Tehran, several shipping companies, oil companies and trading houses have stopped their trips through the strait. This includes crude oil, fuel and liquefied natural gas (LNG), traders said on Saturday. “Our ships will be idle for a few days,” said a senior manager at a major trading house. Satellite images showed ships jamming outside major ports such as Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates and not passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is holding an emergency meeting on Monday over the US and Israeli attacks on Iran. The meeting requested by Russia will begin at 9 a.m. (CET), the UN agency said. Diplomats said there were no signs that Saturday’s attacks hit Iranian nuclear facilities.
After announcing that Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed, US President Donald Trump expressed optimism that regime change could be possible. “We hear that many of their IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards), military and other security and police forces no longer want to fight and are looking for immunity from us,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“Now they can enjoy immunity, later only death awaits them!” he continued. He hoped that the IRGC and the police would peacefully unite with Iranian patriots and work as one to restore the country to greatness. This process should begin soon.
The son of the Shah of Persia, who was overthrown in 1979, Reza Pahlavi, has called on the security forces in Iran to overthrow him. “It is your last opportunity to join the people,” the exiled politician wrote on X after US President Donald Trump’s statement that Iran’s supreme leader had been killed. “Any attempt by the remnants of the regime to appoint a successor to Khamenei is doomed from the start,” he wrote.
