Who was Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? Iran's Supreme Leader killed in US-Israel joint strikes

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in joint US-Israel attacks, ruled Iran for more than three decades. The longest-serving head of state in the Middle East died at the age of 86 on 28 February. A central figure in the Gulf, he reshaped the balance of power through confrontation with the West.

An ardent supporter of the development of Iran's nuclear program, Khamenei had built a powerful network of regional militant groups. Khamenei took over the reins of Iran in 1989, which was left bankrupt following the eight-year war with neighbouring Iraq — one of the deadliest global conflicts of the past century.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei served as the supreme leader of Iran from 1989 until Saturday when he was killed in Tehran. He exercised control over government branches, the military and the judiciary after succeeding Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khamenei was voted to power and as the President of Iran in 1981 after the assassination of Mohammad-Ali Rajai. He served as the president of Iran till 1989 when he became the Supreme Leader of the Islamist regime.

He played a crucial role in the 1979 Iranian revolution that overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's regime — the Shah of Iran.

“Khamenei, through guile and persistence, was able to achieve something pretty miraculous. He turned Iran into a regional power that controlled a pretty wide geography," Wall Street Journal quoted associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in California, Afshon Ostovar, as saying.

Khamenei’s network of armed groups in the Middle East controlled a land corridor running from Tehran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon at the peak of Iran’s expansion. According to Wall Street Journal report, Khamenei used this network to transport arms and personnel.

Khamenei's education focused on the Quran, and he qualified as a cleric by the age of 11. But, like many religious leaders of the time, his work was as much political as spiritual.

An effective orator, Khamenei joined the critics of the Shah of Iran, the monarch who was eventually overthrown by the Islamic Revolution. For years, Khamenei lived underground or festered in jail. He was arrested six times by the Shah's secret police, suffering torture and internal exile.

Several members of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's family were also killed in Isarel's missile strikes, including daughter, son-in-law and grandchild, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)-affiliated Fars News confirmed.