AMMAN, Jordan – Iranians and others across the Middle East awoke Sunday to a region in turmoil following the killing of Iran's supreme leader in U.S. and Israeli air strikes.
The Iranian government, now without the country's spiritual leader but with a military command structure still seemingly intact, continued strikes on Israel and on U.S. targets in Gulf states, Iraq and Jordan.
Israel's military said it began a new wave of attacks in Iran. Explosions were heard in the Iranian capital Sunday morning. Israel's military said it is striking targets belonging to "the Iranian terror regime" located "in the heart of Tehran." The Israeli air force said it conducted large-scale strikes to establish air superiority and "pave the path to Tehran."
Iranian state media Saturday confirmed the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, in air strikes targeting his office in Tehran. An Iran state broadcaster delivered the news in tears. Khamenei assumed the position of spiritual leader after the death in 1989 of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - leader of Iran's Islamic revolution.
Iran said it had established a three-person temporary leadership council to govern the country under Islamic law before a panel of Shia clerics chooses a new spiritual leader.
On Sunday mourners packed Tehran's Enghelab Square and public spaces in other cities to mark what they consider Khamenei's martyrdom.
In the southwestern city of Yasuj, videos posted to social media showed a large crowd chanting 'the lion of God has been killed'. NPR could not independently verify the videos.
Iran said the attack also killed Khamenei's daughter, grandchild, daughter-in-law and son-in-law. It said Armed Forces Chief of Staff Abdolrahim Mousavi and Major General Shahid Rezaian, a senior intelligence chief, also died in airstrikes.
There was no apparent sign of renewed protests that rocked Iran starting in December.
Iranian security forces are believed to have killed thousands of demonstrators at the time, after anger over Iran's financial crisis turned into anti-regime protests. U.S. treasury secretary Scott Bessent said the United States had engineered that financial crisis.
One Tehran resident said she and her friends, who have joined protests over years, shouted in joy from the rooftops when they heard Khamenei had been killed.
She said one of her friends in the city of Karaj near Tehran was later shot as he and other young people danced in the streets.
"The basiji came," she said, referring to paramilitary internal security forces. "He was shot in his back and his leg." The woman, who asked to be identified only as Roxana in fear of regime retaliation, said her friend could not go to hospital in fear of arrest.
In Lebanon, the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah announced a commemoration in Beirut's southern suburbs to mark the death. Hezbollah had warned it would not let Khamenei's death go unpunished, but has so far stayed on the sidelines.
In Iraq, where Iran-backed paramilitaries are part of official government security forces, the government blocked entrances to Baghdad's green zone to protect the U.S. and other embassies based there. They deployed riot police against a group of militia members trying to breach the barricades.
In Jordan, which discretely hosts major U.S. military bases, residents woke up to air raid sirens and the thud of missiles being intercepted.
The oil-rich Gulf, long seen as a safe haven for expatriates and the economic engine for countries that provide most of its skilled and un-skilled labor, faced perhaps the biggest shocks.
Iran on Saturday and Sunday targeted luxury hotels and high-rise apartments believed to house U.S. personnel. Instead of the usual flood of social influencer posts basking in the winter sunshine of Dubai and its neighboring emirates, videos of drones striking high-rise buildings dominated social media feeds. Some images showed smoke filling part of the concourse of Dubai's airport as staff fled the building.
The attacks shut down several major airport hubs in the Middle East, including Dubai's international airport, one of the world's busiest. The airport and the emirate's famed Burj Al Arab hotel were damaged in Iranian attacks. Other projectiles also hit airports in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait.
Iran Sunday threatened its biggest wave of attacks yet on Israel and U.S. military bases. It said that since the start of its retaliation for Saturday's strikes, its projectiles had hit 27 U.S. bases in the region, along with an Israeli base and the Israeli army's general command headquarters. There was no confirmation of these strikes from the U.S. or Israel.
"There will be no mercy or forgiveness in taking revenge for the leader," the Iranian ministry of defense said in a statement.
Iran had also made clear Saturday that it would also attack shipping vessels and other commercial interests, and announced it was closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for Gulf oil exports.
The OPEC group of oil producing countries was set to meet Sunday to decide on increasing production, hoping to avoid a severe rise in oil prices if supplies from the Gulf are restricted by the conflict.
President Trump in announcing the attacks Saturday had told Iranians they should take back their government after the strikes were finished. The killing of Khamenei and widening of Iranian targets pushed Iran's nuclear facilities — the U.S. administration's original stated reason for attacking Iran — to the sidelines.
President Trump on Sunday in a post on "Truth Social" warned Iran against further retaliation, writing "THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!"
Trump also told the news outlet Axios in a brief phone interview: "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 [nuclear and missile programs]."
Carrie Kahn contributed to this report from Istanbul.
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