Iranian officials are urging citizens to fill the streets as Israeli strikes hit security sites, while opposition figures warn the calls aim to create civilian “human shields” around security forces under attack.
As Mojtaba Khamenei’s first public message was delivered Thursday following days of absence, Iranian newspapers and semi-independent websites moved to reinforce his image as a wartime leader.
Airstrikes in Iran have damaged several historic landmarks, including UNESCO-listed sites, raising concern among cultural experts and officials about the protection of heritage during the conflict.
Regional reactions to the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s new Supreme Leader have revealed growing anxiety about stability, with Tehran’s allies condemning the killing of his father and adversaries hardening their military posture.
Threatening rhetoric on Iranian state television has intensified fears of renewed repression, as presenters and officials warn critics at home and abroad they could face confiscation of property, prison or even death.
Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei inherits not merely his father’s office but also the constitutional ambiguities and political compromises that accompanied Ali Khamenei’s own controversial elevation nearly four decades earlier.
Iran’s state media has moved quickly to frame the leadership transition not as a rupture but as proof of institutional resilience, shifting its messaging from wartime urgency to carefully managed continuity.
Two days after he was announced as Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei remains absent from public view, raising questions his swift selection was meant to pre-empt.
Within hours of Mojtaba Khamenei being named Iran’s new Supreme Leader, state institutions responded with solemn messages of loyalty while Persian-language social media filled with satire, as many Iranian users reacted with disbelief, political frustration and dark humor.
Mojtaba Khamenei’s rise to power amid a war with Israel and the United States—in which his parents, wife and a daughter were killed—has led many to wonder whether his leadership will be shaped more by vengeance than by strategy or reconciliation.
Iran’s shutdown of international internet access has entered its tenth day, leaving millions cut off from global communication and raising fears the blackout is putting civilians at risk during wartime.
Why would anyone celebrate bombs falling on their own country? The question was widely asked after videos emerged showing some Iranians cheering strikes on regime targets.
By elevating Mojtaba Khamenei—a figure most Iranians have never heard speak—the Islamic Republic has completed a long drift away from popular legitimacy.
Israeli military images of an underground tunnel complex attributed to Ali Khamenei appear to confirm long-circulating rumors of a network stretching several kilometers beneath central Tehran, under medical centers, schools, and residential neighborhoods.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards continued launching attacks on neighboring countries despite President Pezeshkian’s apology to regional states and his order for the armed forces to halt such strikes, highlighting tensions over who controls wartime decisions.
President Massoud Pezeshkian is facing growing criticism from political figures and analysts for failing to seize what some viewed as a rare opportunity to de-escalate the regional conflict while repairing the state’s broken relationship with Iranians.
Funeral plans for Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have been revised multiple times this week, reflecting mounting security fears, uncertainty over foreign attendance and unresolved questions about succession.
For decades, the wife of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei lived almost entirely outside public view. Even her death was reported reluctantly, as though she had never been there at all.
As anti-war protesters in Western capitals chant “no war with Iran,” some Iranians inside and outside the country are cheering the US-Israeli strikes and publicly thanking President Donald Trump.
With Iran at war and its supreme leader dead, Tehran faces a delicate question: whether to appoint a successor quickly to project continuity, or delay the decision to avoid presenting a new leadership target to its enemies.
The death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has thrust a rather obscure figure into the center of the country’s uncertain political future.
Celebration and stunned disbelief swept across parts of Iran on Saturday evening after US and Israeli officials announced that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed.