Reports Of Khamenei’s Death ‘Feel Correct’ – Trump
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believes multiple reports that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been killed in air strikes are true — but stopped short of directly confirming the news.
“We feel that that is a correct story,” he was quoted as saying by NBC News.
Trump also spoke to ABC News about reports of Khamenei’s death, saying, “I don’t want to say anything definitively until I see things, but we believe he is. And many of their leaders are gone.”
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were “many signs” that Khamenei had been killed in an attack on his compound as part of the US-Israeli campaign.
Trump also stated that the US bombing of Iran will continue as long as needed and that the killing of the country’s supreme leader gives Iranians their “greatest chance” for taking power.
“The country has been, in only one day, very much destroyed and, even, obliterated. The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
The death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — which Iran has not yet confirmed — “is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their country,” Trump said in the statement.
Recall that a wave of strikes on Saturday by the United States and Israel against targets in Iranian cities, triggering explosions and columns of smoke in the capital, Tehran.
Trump said Washington’s goal was “eliminating imminent threats” from Iran, while Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz described the action as a “preventive strike.”
In a video message posted on his social media platform, Trump said, “The United States’ military began major combat operations in Iran.”
He added, “We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated. We’re going to annihilate their navy.”
In a related development, the US said on Saturday that Iran’s retaliation has caused no reported American casualties, the Pentagon said, adding that damage to US installations has been “minimal” despite a barrage of Iranian air assaults.
Following the initial US and Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic, “CENTCOM forces successfully defended against hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks,” the US Central Command, which launched the American operation at the orders of President Donald Trump, said in a statement.
“There have been no reports of US casualties or combat-related injuries. Damage to US installations was minimal and has not impacted operations.”
