President Trump says Iran's Supreme Leader is dead

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thank you for your entrepreneur. And start today for 1 euro per month. On Shopify.nl Stel je voor dat je in de zorg niet nog harder werkt. Maar slimmer. Omdat je medewerkers zorgdossiers kunnen bijwerken. Vanaf een telefoon. En zo meer tijd hebben voor hun cliënten. Ontdek onze slimme technologie. Op kpn.com slash slimmer werken. KPN. Voor een beter werkend Nederland. Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from the BBC studios in London. I'm Sean Lay. It is already past midnight in Iran, about 15 hours since Israel and the United States began missile strikes against the Iranians. Both countries say they hope this will be the catalyst for Iranians to bring down the Islamic Republic after 47 years. Israel claims its strikes have killed the country's supreme leader. Israel says its air force continues to operate inside Iran. New explosions were reported across Iran on Saturday evening. But it's those first attacks on Tehran, whose targets included the leadership compound, that led Israel in the last couple of hours to confirm rumours, swelling for much of the day, that in its judgment, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was dead. This was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He's been revoiced by a translator. Today, in a very powerful surprise attack, we managed to destroy the compound of the tyrant Khamenei. For three and a half decades, this brutal and cruel tyrant who fought the entire world and made its own people miserable, was constantly trying to eradicate Israel. This plan no longer exists. And all indications show that this tyrant is no longer with us as well. We managed to target senior members of the nuclear operation as well as senior officials. And we're going to continue and hit thousands of targets within this terrorist regime. and we are helping the courageous Iranian people to unshackle themselves from the shackles of tyranny. Israeli officials later briefed journalists they had seen images of Ali Khamenei's body. There has been no independent verification, but Iranian state TV has issued a denial. The Supreme Leader's fate therefore remains unclear. On social media, videos published appear to show people in Tehran honking horns and celebrating the news. A source close to the Supreme Leader's office, however, told Iranian state media the leader of the revolution is firmly and firmly commanding the field. As the missiles struck in Washington, D.C., it was the very early hours of Saturday morning. President Trump released a statement on social media saying this was no longer just about Iran's nuclear program, its missiles or its funding of armed insurgents around the region. The United States military began major combat operations in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder, targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries. It's been mass terror, and we're not going to put up with it any longer. Well, in the past hour, President Trump has been conducting interviews with American media and he was asked on NBC News about those reports that the Iranian Supreme Leader had been killed in an airstrike earlier on Saturday. He replied, we feel that that is a correct story. Iran has been striking back not just targeting Israel but also the many US military bases around the Gulf region. Americans also struck pro-Iranian targets inside Iraq, presumably fearing that Iran could mobilise proxies against them. Iran's targeting of American bases led to attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. This is the moment of an explosion captured by an eyewitness on Dubai's Dupal Jumeirah. While the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned events in the Middle East, France, one of the permanent members of the Security Council, warned of the dangers of an escalation and an emergency meeting at the UN in New York has just been convened. Well, earlier, our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, who is reported from inside Iran, spoke by telephone to Esmail Bagheye, who is of the Iranian foreign ministry. And she asked him whether he could confirm if top leadership figures were still alive. I'm not in a situation to confirm anything. I can tell you that many places, many targets were hit across the country, including a number of schools, a number of primary schools, in particular one elementary school, and more than 150 innocent girls were killed and made. They are just calling them collateral damage, And by that, they're just trying to somehow justify these acts of aggression and these acts of mass killings. Iran has retaliated as it said it would. You have now attacked countries right across the region, including your Arab allies. They have all condemned your attacks. Don't you risk losing the key support you need among your regional partners at this time? It is not retaliation. It is an act of self-defense recognized under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Secondly, we have not attacked any country. They are all our friends. What we have done, we have defended against an action by the United States. And we all know that in accordance with international, no country is allowed to let other countries, countries to let the aggressor abuse or use its facilities, its soil, in order to attack another country. Those military bases, which are under full control of the United States, are being used to conduct military attack against Iran. Many of the leaders in the region had been working around the clock to avert a war. But in their first statements, they didn't condemn the attacks by Israel backed by the United States. Their first condemnation was of your attacks. So this seems to put you in a weaker position diplomatically, just at a time when you need your allies. This war was not started by Iran. It was imposed on us and on the region. The only thing we are doing is to conduct an act of self-defense against those bases which are being used by the United States to attack Iran. President Trump in his first comments this morning said he tried to do a deal with you. He said he tried but you didn't want to come to a deal. Do you now realize that you weren't moving quickly enough in offering the kind of compromises which could have averted this military action which is now unfolding? You know, this is just a way of normalizing their act of aggression. This is an excuse. They made it clear it's about regime change now. Is that what you understand? That's simply an illusion that under international law, of course, this is against the right of self-determination of people. This is an act of aggression. This is against the principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of the state and for Iranians, by the way. So that's the Foreign Ministry spokesman speaking to Lise Dissette. And Lise, our Chief International Correspondent, joins us now. Lise, what are the latest reports and your understanding of the situation as regards the Iranian leadership? Well, yes, there was that press conference, or that's addressed by Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. He addressed the nation speaking in Hebrew, and he used the word, he said, the supreme leader of Iran is now gone. Didn't say he had been killed, he just said he's gone, which was a little bit vague. And then since then, there have been reports on American and Israeli media quoting Israeli officials who are not named, saying that the body has been found. Even a report that a photograph of Ayatollah Khamenei's body He was shown to President Trump. And then when President Trump was interviewed by ABC television news, he said that, in his words, a lot of Iranian leaders, political and security, had been killed. And he even said he knew who would replace Ayatollah Khamenei. So all that is very intriguing. And I should mention on the back of that that there is a process in Iran. There's an organization, one of their sole responsibilities is to choose a new supreme leader. It's comprised of about 88 senior clerics, many of them in their 80s, like Ayatollah Khamenei. And they have been poised to choose someone new because they knew that he would be targeted. That was made absolutely clear. But we've had no confirmation from the Iranians that he has been killed, no confirmation that the Assembly of Experts has been meeting. So I think we have to wait for the official confirmation. I was going to ask you about the impact around the region, at least, because obviously we know several countries have been targeted by Iranian missiles. We have, though, a report tonight coming from the Emir of Qatar's office saying that he has spoken to President Trump in a call this evening and urged containment of what he called the dangerous escalation of the conflict. Are the Americans going to come under pressure, perhaps even more than the Israelis, from regional powers who they regard normally as allies? Yes, it's a very interesting moment in how President Trump conducts foreign policy. Our listeners may remember that last year after Israel attacked Qatar, an effort to try to kill Hamas leaders, which didn't succeed, Qatar was furious and that seemed to concentrate President Trump's mind, so much so that he focused on ending the Gaza war in a way in which he hadn't done before. He started listening to Qatar and other Arab allies across the region instead of listening to what Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel was telling him, which was that the war had to go on. It would have gone on into 2026. This time, we were all asking, who would he listen to this time? Would he listen to Prime Minister Netanyahu, who had been repeatedly telling him that diplomacy wouldn't work, that this was a unique opportunity when Iran was at its weakest, internally, externally, for them to make this historic moment where President Trump could seal his place in history by ending the enmity between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America Or would he listen to regional allies like Qatar They were on the phone they went to Washington saying don do it He listened to Prime Minister Netanyahu, but how long will he keep listening? As we know, President Trump can change his mind from one day to the next, even though the day started with that eight-minute video making it clear that all the confusion about what his endgame was, he made it clear it's about regime change. Just one final question to ask you about. There had been reports earlier that Iran had closed the Straits of Hormuz, which potentially would endanger supplies internationally of oil. Is there any confirmation of that? That would be a huge, that's another tool in the arsenal of the Islamic Republic of Iran. That would have repercussions all the way to the streets of London and many other capitals if they close one of the world's most strategic waterways. Lise Doucette, our chief international correspondent as ever, with the very latest on developments in this conflict between the United States and Israel and Iran. Do stay with us here for more news throughout the hour. Coming up on NewsHour, the Israeli Prime Minister says there are strong indications Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has been killed in an Israeli attack on his compound. There's been no confirmation of his claim, which came on the day Israel and the United States launched a wave of bombardments across Iran and Iran retaliated. We hear from one Iranian angry about the attacks. When you are criticizing the political system, it doesn't necessarily mean that you want them to go. You want them to reform themselves. You want them to be better. So if President Trump or Prime Minister Netanyahu are misguided by this protest, then I'm sure that they will learn a lesson sooner or later that it is not up to them to decide about the Iranian people. It is up to the Iranian people to decide about themselves. The Iranian Red Crescent says more than 200 Iranians have been killed. Taran has called on the UN Security Council to take action. The council is meeting. This is Sean Lay with NewsHour coming to you live from the BBC in London. At the end of Saturday, the Israeli Defence Forces, the IDF, said the raids had been the largest in the Air Force's history. In all, 200 fighter jets took part in operations against 500 targets. Israel has now issued an evacuation warning for the industrial area of Isfahan, telling Iranians they should clear the area. That suggests the nuclear facility will be a target in coming hours. Two hours ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went on camera for a second time and raised the possibility that a missile attack had killed Iran's supreme leader. There are reports that Iranian missile attacks on Israel are continuing, with Israel's military saying forces have now been deployed at several crash sites. Let's get the latest from Emmanuel Fabian, who is the military correspondent for The Times of Israel. He joins us from the south of the country. Emmanuel, what's the latest at the moment there? So this evening we saw quite a significant Iranian ballistic missile attack targeting the Tel Aviv area. Earlier in the day, according to military assessments, Iran launched around 170 ballistic missiles, dozens of them targeting Israel, but also dozens against American military facilities in the Middle East, in Qatar and Bahrain. but this evening we saw quite a large number of missiles, the exact number we don't know yet, but one at least struck in Tel Aviv and there's one person seriously wounded and several others also hurt in this attack. What about the political risks in all of this for Prime Minister Netanyahu? I mean, Netanyahu is coming up to an election now. One has to be held by, I think, around October. So there is a big risk for him in this But I think, you know, so far this operation has proved relatively successful. I think for Israel, Israel has announced that it has killed several top Iranian leaders, security leaders, including the chief of the IRGC. So, I mean, even following June's war with Iran, polling numbers showed this to be quite, you know, quite popular for him, this kind of move. I don't think there's a sort of a political aspect to this really to him launching this. I think this was very coordinated between the Israeli and American militaries for quite a while now because Israel sees Iran as this existential threat. It wants to remove the threat of the ballistic missiles on Israel. And that's really the reason it has launched this new operation against Iran. Do you think it's fair to say then that notwithstanding the very strong protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu's policies domestically, that on the question of Iran, as on the question of Hamas, there is much more support for his position? Definitely. I think there's a consensus in Israel. We even saw opposition leaders sort of praising the operation, mainly praising the military for it. Of course, none of them like Netanyahu and Netanyahu is unpopular in the country in general. But the action against Iran is definitely something that there is a consensus over. Are you getting a sense at all that Israel might be rowing back a bit on this suggestion that Khamenei is dead? No, I think from what I understand from Israeli officials that he indeed was killed in this strike. Of course, we're waiting for final confirmation. We haven't heard this officially yet from the Israeli military. They did name several top commanders, including Khamenei's advisor and the IOGC commander. But there is apparently footage that was shown to Netanyahu of Ali Khamenei's body. and I think that's supposedly enough for Israeli officials to be saying this. Just one last thought. The Prime Minister made it very clear in his statements today that this was about the hope of regime change but that it depends very much on the Iranian reaction. What if they don't react? What if they don't rise up against the regime? What if, in effect, it remains unchanged, albeit the Supreme Leader is gone, that actually its whole approach remains the same? Will this be regarded as a failure in Israel? I think somewhat. I think at least the public may think so. But I think the careful wording that Netanyahu used and even the military has been using is they want to create the conditions for a potential regime change. They're not going for an actual regime change, meaning that they hope that the Iranian people will rise up and act and change the regime. But whether or not that will actually happen is, of course, a very big question and not something we can really predict. And I also don't think that a regime change like that is likely to happen during ongoing conflict. I think the strikes would need to stop before we see people taking the streets and protesting again. Emmanuel Fabian, military correspondent at the Times of Israel. Thank you very much. Let's talk now to Sanam Vakil, an expert on Iranian and Gulf politics at the Foreign Affairs think tank Chatham House in London. Whether the supreme leader of Iran is dead or not, this is clearly a hugely significant moment for Iran and for the region. Yes, indeed. I think the Iranian regime certainly anticipated that the supreme leader would be targeted. Last year in the summer when Israel and the United States launched the 12-day war against Iran, there were perhaps efforts then at killing the Iranian supreme leader. And so now that they might have got him and it's important to wait for Iran's confirmation that might emerge perhaps by tomorrow morning, it remains to be seen on how the Islamic Republic will try to maintain continuity and showcase that they have a constitutional and institutional process in place. I suppose then the more practical question is what impact this might have on the military leadership of Iran, because clearly a lot of those people were targeted just as they were a year ago. Indeed. There are reports that Iran's IRGC commander has been killed. Iran's minister of defense has been killed. Ali Shamhani, who is well known internationally, former head of the Supreme National Security Council and head of the Defense National Council, and he was targeted last year in the war. There are suggestions that he has also been killed. These haven't yet been verified, so we have to be quite cautious. But Iran has been preparing for this war. They have, of course, quickly responded much faster than they did last summer. But secondly, they have implemented, I think, a strategy to quickly replace the command structure. And I imagine that will also be the case for Iran's supreme leader. And what about Iran's capacity to keep hitting back? Well, that certainly is the big question. The regime is suggesting that it still is holding back on some of the missiles that could really inflict serious damage. Over the past 12 hours now, we've seen Iran hit targets across Israel and also hit targets across the Gulf states, including American military bases, but also some civilian targets, airports, hotels in Dubai and beyond. And so Iran's strategy right now is to continue its response and to showcase sustained response. And we'll see how things go from there. Does it have the capacity to close the Straits of Fomuz as it had been reported that it was threatening to do? Well, it hasn't yet done so. But, you know, it has been preparing for this moment, I would say, for 47 years. So I guess if it's going to happen, this is the now or never moment where Iran is certainly going to throw everything at the region, is looking to externalize this war, export instability as much as possible as the only strategy it has to preserve itself. Son of the Keel at Chatham House Foreign Affairs Think Tank. Thank you for that, but do stay with us. We'll talk again a little later in the programme, I should just say. It's now 12 hours since the military action began. The UN Security Council is meeting right now. The Iranian permanent representative to the UN is delivering his country's comments. Of course, one of the countries affected by the Iranian retaliatory missiles on US military targets. This is NewsHour. Stay with us. Transcription by CastingWords Ready to sell? Then you're ready for Shopify. Make your entrepreneur's dream and start today for 1 euro per month on Shopify.nl. You're ready to sell? You're not even harder, but slimmer. Because your employees can work on a phone call. And so more time to have for a client. Find our smart technology at kpn.com slash slimmer working. KPN. For a better work in a country. I'm Sam Peranti, and for the past seven years, I've been granted access to a team of US special agents. 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Well, we're going to cross to Washington, D.C. now because during the course of Saturday, Iran cut the Internet, reducing the flow of information and Iran's contact with the outside world. But the BBC Persian services, Hashaya Joneidi, is in Washington from where he's been monitoring social media. Hashaya, first of all, has there been any reaction on social media to these reports coming from Israel that the Supreme Leader may be dead? Well, what I've seen, I mean, there's not that much activity because, as you correctly said, the Internet has been cut. Most of the Internet connection is down. But from what I've seen and what I've heard is like there has been a lot of joyous reaction to this news. Actually, if you go and check BBC Persians social media accounts, we've managed to gather video from inside Iran, from Tehran. Like people are on the rooftops. rooftops. You could hear them being celebratory, the celebratory mood. You see firecrackers, people are honking on the streets. And I've talked to a couple of friends who are in Iran, one of them, like some other people from Tehran, were escaping the war, getting out of Tehran, trying to reach the Caspian coast. There's high traffic on the road because many people are trying to leave the capital. And he said the traffic is a standstill. But once the news came out, people would just stop on the road and come out of their cars and start dancing. So there is some joy, there is some celebratory mode. And of course, this is coupled with a sense of uncertainty. They're not sure about the future, what this would bring for them. But at the moment, they're trying to capture the joy and being happy and they're not shy of not expressing it. What about reports of casualties as a result of the Israeli and U.S. attacks? There's been reports, conflicting reports coming out of Iran about the places that have been hit. Well, most of these military targets, the government has not reported on them that much. One story that the government tried to report many times and tried to get it out was a story of a girls' school being hit in the southern city of Minab in Iran. At first they said 56 students were killed. Later they increased the number to close to 100. This still has to be verified. The story is not verified yet. But the satellite images show that this school is in the vicinity of IRGC Navy compound. So if it's been hit, we don't know if the target was the IRGC compound or another place. But we still don't have verification regarding the number of fatalities in this attack. Hashaya Joneidi in Washington, D.C. for BBC Persian. Thanks very much for that update here on NewsHour from the BBC World Service. You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC World Service with me, Sean Lay. Right, let's hear now from Iran, which has been the target of a day of Israeli US military strikes intended, according to President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a catalyst for change in the country. Both, when they announced the strikes early on Saturday, said they were hoping that Iranians would respond to the chaos caused and perhaps damage to the military infrastructure by rising up and bringing an end to the 47-year-old Islamic regime. However, Iran has hit back. It's not only targeted all day and into the night Israel. It is also aimed missiles at US military bases, which are inside the territory of neighboring countries around the Gulf, including Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, as well as a number of others, including the UAE. They have protested over the Iranian military strikes. The UN Security Council is currently meeting in New York, debating what action it may recommend and whether it can get the support, of course, of all the permanent members, since one of those permanent members, the United States, is involved in the military action. Let's hear now from inside Iran. In Tehran, buildings belonging to the Ministry of Intelligence and the judiciary were struck alongside the residential compound of the president, the Ayatollah Khamenei. On the streets of the capital, there was chaos as the city scrambled to respond. From some, though, jubilation. I'm feeling so good, one shouts, I love Trump. Well, in his eight-minute video released in the early hours of Saturday, President Trump sent a message to Iranians. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. For many years you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let's see how you respond. Well, Fereshteh Sadige is a freelance journalist based in Tehran. And a couple of hours ago, she spoke to me about the day's events. Today morning, they started from central areas of Tehran and eastern parts of Tehran where government offices, the office of Iran's leader, Ayyollah Ali Khamenei, are located. And in east of Tehran, where the Ministry of Defence, Some of the installation belonging to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps are located there. My sister called me because she's working in downtown Tehran. And she said about the explosion sounds and the glass were just shaking. Then suddenly in her working place, they asked all the staff to leave. And then almost everybody was aware that something was going on. And then suddenly the streets were packed with traffic jam. People went to the streets, I mean, mothers, fathers, to collect their children from the schools. 11 in the morning, up until 2 or 3. In the afternoon, there was traffic jam. Up until 2 or 3 local time, we heard some sounds of explosion. Maybe, I don't know, maybe missile attack. Maybe they were anti-aircraft guns. Then for some hours, there was a calm. Half an hour ago when I was praying, I just heard sounds of explosion. Maybe they were explosion, I mean missile, or maybe they were anti-aircraft guns. That would be about 7.30 in the evening local time, would it? 7.30 or a quarter to eight local time. And I didn't hear anything more. Now the streets are very deserted. Everybody is at home. What is state media saying? They are covering the events thoroughly. They try to stay away somehow from rhetoric or from giving wrong information to people. There were some statements from the Supreme National Security Council, from the Office of President, from the IRGC, from the Iranian military, and both the Supreme National Security Council and the government. In their statement and through SMS, they asked the citizens of Tehran to leave because they said that this war may take longer than what is expected. So if you have somewhere in safer provinces, please leave the city. What has been, would you say, the reaction from people you have spoken to? Have you got a sense of whether people are angry about this? Maybe whether some people might be pleased about it? What mood have you picked up? You know, I can't, as a kind of journalist, I can't deny that some people are pleased about it. I didn't go to the streets much because I just went to collect my nephews. But my sister, who was coming via the subway in Tehran, she said that some girls, some young girls, they were happy. And there was some sort of, you can say, verbal quarrel between a lady and the girls. I also saw a video that some women, they were dancing in the street. But when you look at the bodies of 85 small girls who were killed in Israel-U.S. joint strike, we can say, in Minab in south of Iran. This is on a girls' school, according to state media, yes. They were killed. And Iranians are the people who are very, you can say, connected to their land. So they don't like someone like President Trump or Netanyahu with his atrocities in Gaza. They don't like someone like them because President Trump last night, he was claiming that I want to free and liberate the people of Iran. We don't want him to be the liberator of Iran because Iranians don't need a liberator like Trump. I suspect actually they scripted what he said quite carefully. He says very clearly that, you know, people asked for us to intervene when the domestic violence was happening, when the protests were being suppressed. We've done it. It's up to you now. whether you seize that opportunity. So in a sense, he seems to be trying to play to that, say, look, I'm not trying to be a liberator. I'm just trying to create the circumstances in which you as Iranians can decide whether you want to free yourself from this regime or not. Actually, I think in June, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said the same thing. He said that I have a strong top leadership of the IDRGC, so it's time for you to go to the streets. And people didn't go to the streets. They went to Shomal, to north of Iran. So I think in a country that has between 85 to 90 million people, even if at best 10 million people don't want a regime, doesn't mean that everybody doesn't want the political system. I appreciate that. But even when the Shah fell, he obviously fell in 78. The Islamic Revolution arrived in 79. There were people who didn't want him to go. But actually, the momentum was for change. And I just wonder whether what the Americans and Israelis think, they may be misguided about this. But as a result of the street protests we saw in December and in January, and we've had a few again in the last few days, that their sense is that something has changed in Iran and that the momentum is towards potentially a change of the system in a way that maybe it wasn't a year ago, even though they wished it had been. I think even if they have made their assessment based on those protests in January and then the recent protests at the university campuses, they are totally misguided. Because the number of people who were on the streets or in universities, it was not comparable even to the population of Tehran. Tehran has about 12 million population. And not even 2 million population took all around the world to protest. Not everybody in Iran, in this country, wants their political system to go. Maybe there are, yes, there are grievances, there are economic grievances, there are difficulties. But that doesn't mean that you want the entire political system to go. You know, when you are criticizing the political system, it doesn't necessarily mean that you want them to go. You want them to reform themselves. You want them to be better. So if President Trump or Prime Minister Netanyahu are misguided by these protests, then I'm sure that they will learn a lesson sooner or later that it is not up to them to decide about the Iranian people. It is up to the Iranian people to decide about themselves. That is Fereshtar Sadagay. The US government has been briefing that President Trump had concluded that Iran was stringing out negotiations in Geneva this week and wasn serious about making a deal We have had a bit of an update I should say from President Trump He's just posted on Truth Social. He claims that the Supreme Leader Hamané, one of the most evil people in history, in his words, is dead. He adds, he was unable to avoid our intelligence and highly sophisticated tracking systems and working closely with Israel. That was not a thing he or the other leaders that have been killed along with him could do. Needless to say, there has been no confirmation. Earlier, I spoke to Rob Malley, who helped negotiate the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA, as it's known, under Barack Obama, and was then the president's special envoy in Iran. Does he think U.S. strikes had become inevitable? They certainly were unnecessary and unjustified. Everything that we have seen reported over the last several days and weeks suggests that the Iranians were prepared not to agree to everything President Trump was demanding, But to agree to enough, that would have guaranteed that whatever deal was reached was stronger in terms of the constraints that it imposed on Iran's nuclear program than what had been negotiated in the JCPOA. It appears like the president was engaged in diplomacy as a cover for engaging in war. You talk about its predecessors. You worked for both President Obama and President Biden. What do you think of the mistakes they made in handling Iran? I do think that both the regime and successive US administrations have been engaging this macabre dance in which the US imposes the kind of pressure and sanctions that leads the Iranian regime to react in ways, whether it's through violence or repressing of its own people or destabilizing the region, which just revalidate the policies that the US has engaged in. And this is a vicious cycle in which both sides in some ways are vindicated by the reactions to the actions that they take. One thing I was going to ask you about in the light of remarks that Benjamin Netanyahu has just made, he said that there are multiple signs that the Supreme Leader Ali Hamanayi may be dead. And were that to be the case, would that in truth make any difference to the durability of the Iranian regime? I don't think that that on its own is going to lead to the collapse of the regime. It does have impact because he was a outsized figure who was stuck in the past. But I don't think that taking out the leader is tantamount to taking out the regime. This is a regime that has deep roots. There may not be routes that are sufficient to protect it over time, but that's certainly routes that will be sustained even in the event of the death of the Supreme Leader. And I suspect also that the regime had contingencies in place for just such a scenario, because clearly that was one of the targets that they must have known both Israel and the United States were going to go after in the early hours of the war. I'm just going to quote Reuters, which says it's been told by a senior official that Hamanai is dead and that his body has been found. I have no independent evidence one way or the other. I suspect that the more we're hearing it, the more it sounds like it's true. Again, I'm not sure that that is a decisive turning point in the war itself. It could be an important turning point for Iran's future, but the war is not being led by one man. And just on the question of consequences, the regional impact, what worries you most about this? A regime that has nothing to lose will show very little restraint. Now, we've already seen Iran targeting some of its neighbors, which could seem quite self-defeating because it is now going to unite most of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, if not all of them, against it, even at a time when it would have liked the attention to be on the unlawful war that Israel and the United States are waging. But I think that's an indication of the fact, A, that the regime has very few options militarily, but also it's calculation that if the war can be dragged on and if the costs are going to be incurred by others, not just by Iran, but by its neighbours and by international commerce, that the costs will rise so that pressure will grow on the United States, on President Trump in particular, to try to find an exit ramp. Rob Marley. You're listening to NewsHour from the BBC World Service, coming live from our studios in London. Let's talk now to Sanin Vakil, who's still with us. She's director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, the foreign affairs think tank in London. I just wanted to talk about this post that President Trump has made on Truth Social, his media site, in which he's described the death of Khamenei, if it is confirmed, as giving Iranians the greatest chance to take back their country. I mean, it sounds like the Americans are going to continue to push and try to press for an Iranian reaction, an Iranian reaction from the streets. Well, Donald Trump didn't just say that in this post just now. He also said it this morning, London time, when he released a video outlining the U.S.'s war aims and ultimately saying that he was providing Iranian people with a historic opportunity to reclaim Iran. Ali Khamenei has been in the sights or a target of Israel and Iran since last year's war. So I'm not surprised that this has happened. And in fact, obviously, his death is being celebrated across Iran and among many countries and people abroad. This is a man who is responsible for the death of thousands of his citizens and has stubbornly resisted change from within and held on to a dying ideology. So while this might be the end of Ali Khamenei, I think the bigger question is, can the regime reconstitute? Can it push forward an orderly pattern of succession, show continuity and transition? and continue simultaneously to resist and strike targets across the region. And, you know, these are the bigger questions ahead. And those bigger questions presumably should weigh heavily of both the Israelis and the Americans, because if nothing actually changes in Iran as a result of this considerably large military action, that could politically rebound on them, presumably cause further anger in the region. Well, certainly the region, firstly, is in an extraordinarily difficult position. I don't think that they anticipated the range and scale of Iran's response. It hasn't just been directed to U.S. military bases in multiple Arab countries, but also has targeted civilian sites from hotels to an airport in Kuwait. The damage has been far more extensive. But let's be clear, the Islamic Republic as we have known it since 1989 under the leadership of Ali Khamenei is no longer. We are moving into a new phase of leadership. It's unclear who's going to take over. It's unclear what form of governance will emerge from Iran. It could be from within the system. It could be something that results in chaos or fragmentation. But we are moving into a new phase of Iranian leadership. And that is something extraordinary. And we sort of have to see what the days and weeks will produce. Let's go. Selim Fakil, thank you very much. Let's go live now to Washington and our correspondent, Jola Osso, who has the latest from there. Hi, yes. President Trump has shared on Truth Social that Ayatollah Khamenei is dead. The BBC hasn't been able to independently verify this. He goes on to say in his post that other Iranian leaders have been killed too, and that the US has been working closely with Israel. He says that this is justice for the people of Iran, for all great Americans, and for many other countries around the world. He says that Khamenei was unable to avoid American intelligence and tracking systems and calls this the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country, which shows that the president still wants regime change in Iran. He also goes on to talk about the military and security forces there and the police. He says that he hears that they no longer one to fight. And that he says that this process should soon be starting, that not only the death of Hermione, but the country has been very much destroyed and obliterated, that there's been heavy pinpoint bombing. And however, that this will continue uninterrupted throughout the week, or as long as is necessary to achieve his objective, he says, of peace throughout the Middle East and around the world. Jola, also in Washington DC. Thank you very much. We should just talk very briefly in the last couple of minutes to Sanem Fakhil from Chatham House. Sanem, about the regional impact. We heard from Qatar, for example, that it's been targeted by 44 missiles and eight drones. We've also got a number of protests by regional governments to the Iranians, as well as concern expressed by Qatar, for example, that the reaction could get out of hand and urging President Trump to ensure there isn't further expansion of this military operation. I've also noticed a French shipping group, CMA CGM, saying it's told all its vessels inside and bound to the Gulf to proceed to shelter. There really is a lot of uncertainty at the end of this first day of military action, isn't there? Well, that's what wars generally produce, a lot of uncertainty and an extraordinary amount of damage, including humanitarian loss of life that we are not talking about. But for the Gulf states, I think that they did not anticipate this range of response from Iran. Over the past few years, Iran and many Gulf states have worked to restore ties to build a better relationship, not certainly a perfect or trust-based relationship. And these targeted strikes across the Gulf are certainly going to challenge those relationships in the days and weeks ahead. And the Gulf states simultaneously have to answer to their citizens that are looking up at the skies and seeing missiles and attacks overhead, but also seeing actual damage on the ground. This is a real crisis for the region. And Iran hopes ultimately by quickly pushing the threat of this war beyond Iran's borders and spreading it to the region, that that is the best off-ramp to getting to a ceasefire. And, Sanim, just finally, for the American president to say that Hamidi is dead, they must be pretty confident. Certainly. Of course, they're very confident. They must have the evidence. Hopefully, they will release it for us as soon as possible. This is not a surprise, but certainly, of course, It showcases the resolve of the United States. We have to see what comes next, how Iran is going to respond and how the Islamic Republic is going to try to showcase continuity in a post-Hamani Iran. The death of Hamani, says President Trump in a post on Truth Social, gives the greatest chance to take back their country. This is NewsHour from the BBC World Service. Don't forget we're with you twice a day, every day. Do join us again for another NewsHound. I'm Sam Peranti, and for the past seven years, I've been granted access to a team of US special agents. Their job? To track down those who create and trade in sickening images on the dark web. When I hug my kids, that's your fuel. 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