After more than three decades as Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in US and Israeli air strikes on Saturday morning.

The man who led the country in two capacities since 1981 was a key figure in the Islamic revolution that overthrew the Iranian monarchy in 1979. He first served as president, then as supreme leader following the 1989 death of revolutionary leader Rohollah Khomeini.

While credited with leading Tehran through a bloody, eight-year war against Iraq in the 1980s and fostering an economy that survived despite Western sanctions, his reign was racked by mᴀss protests against rigged elections, human rights violations and economic hardship.

Most recently, protests in December and January, which escalated from demonstrations by shopkeepers in Tehran over inflation to calls for regime change across the country, were violently suppressed by state forces, resulting in mᴀssacres.
Khamenei was killed early in the strikes, along with several senior military officials, including from the elite army unit, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).