Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: The leader who shaped Iran’s defiance

Al Jazeera · Feb 28, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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US president Donald Trump has announced the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei after joint US-Israeli air strikes hit his compound on Saturday.Trump said Khamenei and other Iranian officials ”couldn’t escape US intelligence and the advanced tracking systems.”Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Who is Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei and why is he a possible target?list 2 of 3What to know about the US and Israel attacks on Iranlist 3 of 3Netanyahu says US and Israel attacked Iran to remove ‘existential threat’end of listKhamenei took the helm of the Islamic republic in 1989 following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the charismatic leader who had spearheaded the Islamic revolution a decade earlier.While Khomeini was the ideological force behind the revolution that ended the rule of the Pahlavi monarchy, it was Khamenei who shaped the military and paramilitary apparatus that form both Iran’s defence against its enemies, and provide it with influence well beyond its borders.Before becoming supreme leader, he had led Iran as president through a bloody war with Iraq in the 1980s. The grinding conflict, coupled with a sense of isolation among many Iranians as Western countries backed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, deepened Khamenei’s distrust of the West generally and the United States, in particular, analysts say.That sentiment would underpin his decades-long rule and cement the idea that Iran must remain in a constant state of defence against external and internal threats.“People think [of Iran] as a theocracy, because he [Khamenei] wears the turban and the language of the state is the language of religion, but in reality, he was a wartime president that came out of war with the assumption that Iran is vulnerable and in need of security,” said Vali Nasr, Iranian affairs expert and author of Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History. “That the US is hostile to Iran; and that the revolution, the Islamic republic and nationalism, are not separated” and that so, they need to be protected.Under this vision, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) evolved from a paramilitary force into a powerful security, political and economic institution that became central to broader Iran’s influence across the region. Khamenei also promoted a “resistance economy” to foster self-reliance in the face of punishing Western sanctions, maintained a strong scepticism of engagement with the West, and responded forcefully to critics who argued his focus on defence was blocking much-needed reforms.But his rule was seriously tested over the years, including in 2009, when protesters who took to the streets over what they claimed was a rigged presidential election were met with a brutal crackdown, and in 2022 over women’s rights.Possibly the biggest challenge to his rule came in January when protests triggered by economic hardship morphed into nationwide upheaval, with many protesters directly calling for the overthrow of the Islamic republic. The authorities’ response led to one of the most violent confrontations since the country’s 1979 revolution.Critics saw him as being too out-of-touch with a young population seeking reforms and economic improvement over isolationism and forever shadow wars with the US and Israel.“Iranians paid too high a cost for this degree of insistence on national independence – in the process, he lost the Iranian population because they no longer believed in the wisdom of this independence,” Nasr said.A demonstrator carries a portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally in solidarity with Palestinians and in condemnation of Israel and the United States, after Friday prayers in Tehran [File: AFP]EducationBorn in 1939 in the holy Shia city of Mashhad in northeast Iran, Khamenei was the son of a renowned Muslim leader and ethnic Azerbaijani from neighbouring Iraq. The family first settled in Tabriz in northwestern Iran before moving to Mashhad, a place favoured by religious pilgrims, where Khamenei’s father led an Azerbaijani mosque.Khamenei has described his mother, Khadijeh Mirdamadi, as an avid Quran and book reader who instilled in her son a love of literature and poetry, and later supported her son as he joined the movement against the Pahlavi dynasty’s rule.Khamenei started his studies at age four, learning the Quran, and completed his primary education at the first Islamic school in Mashhad. He did not finish high school, instead attending theology schools and learning from renowned Islamic scholars of the time, like his father, and Sheikh Hashem Ghazvini. In the following years, he continued his studies at more prestigious Shia centres for higher education in Najaf and Qom.In Qom, he learned from and became close to a number of other famous Muslim scholars, including Ayatollah Khomeini, who was popular among young seminarians for his defiance of the shah.Khamenei taught jurisprudence courses and public theology interpretation classes, which also allowed him to gain access to a growing audience, especially young students who were beginning to become disillusioned with the monarchy.The monarchy at the time had been reinstated to absolute power following an MI6 and CIA-orchestrated coup in 1953, which ousted democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh after he attempted to nationalise the Iranian oil industry.As a political activist, Khamenei was repeatedly arrested by the shah’s secret police (SAVAK) and sentenced to exile in the remote city of Iranshahr in southeastern Iran, but returned to take part in the 1978 protests that led to the end of the Pahlavi rule.Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (3rd from right) attends a memorial service for the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini alongside senior officials on June 7, 1989 [Fatih Saribas/Reuters]The supreme leaderOnce the monarchy had been deposed, Khamenei became a key figure in establishing the new Iran. He served briefly as minister of defence in 1980 and later as the supervisor of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. A fiery orator, he also secured the influential post of Tehran’s Friday prayer leader.1981 proved a momentous year for Khamenei. He lost the use of his right arm after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt by the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an opposition group that had started an armed uprising against the newly established Iranian theocracy after falling out with Khomeini. In the same year, Khamenei won the presidency, becoming Iran’s first clerical president.In 1989, the death of Khomeini was a turning point for the Islamic republic. Before his death, Khomeini had sidelined his long-time designated heir, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, due to the latter’s criticism of the mass execution of prisoners in 1988.A council that had been set up to revise the constitution appointed Khamenei instead. To make that happen, the council had to loosen the qualifications required to hold the country’s top job. Khamenei did not have the title of the hojatoleslam – a high-ranking Shia clerical title.“I believe I do not deserve this position; perhaps you and I know this. This would be symbolic leadership, not real leadership,” Khamenei said at the time.But his leadership has been anything but symbolic.Khamenei’s early tenure as ayatollah was defined by efforts to rebuild a country shattered by eight years of war with Iraq. More than a million people were killed in the conflict, and the economy was left in ruins. The conflict had also fostered resentment towards the international community over its perceived inaction following Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iranian forces and civilians. While still president, Khamenei would frequently visit the front lines, earning the loyalty of the IRGC and gaining a firsthand understanding of the realities of war.“He is the leader whose formation was in the war with Iraq – that framed his outlook on domestic and foreign politics. Once he became the supreme leader, he focused on building the military and paramilitary apparatus for a siege, for constant resistance,” said Narges Bajoghli, an associate professor of anthropology and Middle East studies at John Hopkins University.But the mood began to change in the 1990s. The country was in desperate need of investment, while the revolutionary fervour had begun to cool somewhat. Some, exhausted by the war, were eager to see Iran return to the international fold.That sentiment translated into a landslide election victory for reformist Mohammad Khatami in 1997, an advocate for rapprochement with the West and promoter of a “dialogue among civilisations”.Supporters of Iran’s presidential election candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi carry posters with images of Mousavi, left, and former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami during a campaign rally in Tehran, on June 9, 2009 [File: Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters]Still, Khamenei’s own scepticism and mistrust towards the West remained steadfast. He saw the vote for reform, including from within the ranks of the military and paramilitary apparatus, as a threat to the status quo. So he set off to create a stable voting bloc of loyal supporters against reformers, according to Bajoghli.“Khamanei never had a natural base for himself compared to Khomeini,” said Bajoghli, also the author of Iran Framed. “So he put a lot of funding in redoing the education and training for the young generations [within the paramilitary system] that would then find their way up.”That meant giving the IRGC a free hand to build a network of businesses that would allow them to dominate Iran’s economy while also intensifying training programmes, especially for younger members of its paramilitary volunteer force, the Basij. While it was a limited section of society, it was one that would grow in line with Khamenei’s posture of perpetual resistance against the West and one that was given great resources. More importantly, Bajoghli said, they were willing to figh