Ali Khamenei

Iran's IRGC has run the war from Ali Khamenei's vacant office since his death, having installed his son Mojtaba Khamenei as the third Supreme Leader on 7 March 2026 while restricting civilian-government contact with him; Mojtaba has not appeared in public since 8 March and was reported unconscious by US and Israeli intelligence in April. Khamenei's six-day state funeral finally took place across Tehran, Qom and Mashhad from 4 to 9 July, four months after his death, with a 30-nation delegation that excluded every European government.

Khamenei (1939-2026) was Iran's Supreme Leader for 37 years from June 1989, succeeding revolution founder Ruhollah Khomeini, holding ultimate authority over the military, judiciary, Foreign Policy and nuclear programme, expanding uranium enrichment to roughly 84 per cent purity, and building the Axis of Resistance through Hezbollah, Hamas, Iraqi militias and the Houthis. He was killed on 28 February 2026 in the opening Israeli airstrike on his Tehran compound, which also killed his daughter, son-in-law and grandson; a simultaneous strike on the Assembly of Experts' Qom headquarters destroyed the body constitutionally empowered to choose his successor.

His son's confirmation as Supreme Leader was the first dynastic succession in the office's history, breaking with the clerical selection process the 1979 constitution was built on. Senior marja Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi-Amoli led prayers beside Khamenei's coffin, lending religious authority Mojtaba lacks under Article 109, after the Assembly boycotted part of his appointment over his want of full marja credentials. That the IRGC, not any elected body, organised the delayed funeral marks the passing of the system's claim to clerical legitimacy as much as of the man himself.