Ali Hosseini Khamenei (19 April 1939 – 28 February 2026) was an Iranian Shia cleric, politician, and revolutionary. He served as the second and longest-serving Supreme Leader of Iran from 4 June 1989 until his assassination on 28 February 2026. Before that, he was Iran’s third President from 1981 to 1989, during the Iran–Iraq War. His nearly 37-year tenure as Supreme Leader made him the Middle East’s longest-serving head of state at the time of his death and the longest-ruling Iranian leader since Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Khamenei played a key role in shaping post-revolutionary Iran, overseeing its nuclear program for civilian purposes (as stated in his fatwa banning weapons of mass destruction), expanding the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) into a major force, and supporting the Ax...