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The escalating conflict in the Middle East is fueling fears that Washington's pursuit of regime change in Iran, and Tehran's retaliation, could destabilize regions from the Gulf to Europe, leaving global leaders scrambling to assess the fallout. The U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran over the weekend, killing the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompting waves of attacks by Tehran across the region. President Donald Trump made it clear in a video message Saturday following the initial wave of U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran that his objective was "eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people."

The death of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sets in motion a formal succession process that could have significant implications for the country's political stability, sanctions outlook and already strained economy. Khamenei was killed in a joint military strike by Israel and the United States, Iranian state media confirmed. At the time of his death, Khamenei, 86, was at his office within his residence, Iran's Fars News Agency said on Telegram. Khamenei assumed power following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, inheriting a revolutionary state still consolidating itself after the Iran-Iraq war.

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead, Iranian state media agency Press TV said in an X post. The agency said the supreme leader was “martyred.” In a separate post, Press TV announced 40 days of mourning. The U.S. Treasury Department said it was sanctioning Press TV in a 2023 statement after Iran suppressed protests over the death of Mahsa “Zhina” Amini, who died in a Tehran hospital. Khamenei’s death resulted from an Israeli airstrike, the Islamic Republic News Agency said on X.

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President Donald Trump told NBC News on Saturday that “we feel that is a correct story,” referring to media reports citing Israeli claims that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in airstrikes. Read more: cnb.cx/4aV6Sbp

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been killed, after Israel and the U.S. carried out airstrikes in Iran. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told MSNOW that both Khamenei and Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian are “safe and sound.”

The joint U.S. and Israeli attack on OPEC member Iran risks a major oil supply disruption in the Middle East that, in a worst-case scenario, could trigger a global economic recession. Iran is the fourth-largest oil producer in OPEC at just over 3 million barrels per day in January. The Islamic Republic shares a coastline with the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important waterway for the global oil trade. The oil market has long shrugged off the risk of an oil supply disruption in the Middle East. Traders are underestimating the threat that Iranian retaliation to the U.S. attack poses to the market, said Bob McNally, a former White House energy advisor to former President George W. Bush. “This is the real deal,” said McNally, founder and president of Rapidan Energy. Crude oil future prices will likely rise by $5 to $7 per barrel when trading opens at 6 p.m. ET Sunday as the market prices in some risk, he said.

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