By Farnaz Fassihi
Before the American and Israeli bombs started falling on Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the authoritarian center of the theocratic regime for nearly 40 years, had planned for a transition of power in the event of his death.
Ayatollah Khamenei, 86, had led Iran since 1989, and held sweeping powers as the supreme leader. He was at once revered by followers as a representative of God, and as the commander in chief of the armed forces, with the definitive word in all key state matters.
Ever since succeeding Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founding father of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei ruled with an iron fist and refused calls for change, crushing dissent and ordering the killing of protesters who challenged his rule in the street. Above all else, Ayatollah Khamenei viewed himself as the guardian of the revolution, responsible for safeguarding the survival of the Islamic republic, and had identified possible replacements to assume that role after him.
Now it appears that his plans will be put to the test. President Trump declared on Saturday that Ayatollah Khameni had been killed. Iran did not immediately confirm this.
“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do,” he added.
In June, during the 12-day war with Israel, when Ayatollah Khamenei was in hiding, he named three candidates who could be appointed swiftly to succeed him. The supreme leader must be a senior Shia cleric and scholar appointed by a committee of clerics known as the Assembly of Experts.
The three candidates Ayatollah Khamenei said he preferred for the role of supreme leader, based on interviews with six senior Iranian officials and two clerics who did not want to be identified discussing sensitive information, are the head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i; Ayatollah Khamenei’s chief of staff, Ali Asghar Hejazi; and Hassan Khomeini, a moderate cleric from the reformist political faction who is a grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, who has been a powerful figure in the shadows, is favored by some factions, but Ayatollah Khamenei told followers that he did not want the post of supreme leader to be hereditary.
What happens now in Iran is unclear. Early Saturday Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had tried to project a sense of business as usual, telling NBC News on Saturday that “as far I know,” Ayatollah Khamenei and other senior officials were alive and “we are managing the situation, and everything is under control.”
But the nation’s divisions were on display by evening. In some neighborhoods in Tehran, opponents of Ayatollah Khamenei were seen cheering, dancing and shouting in celebration of reports of his death, according to more than a dozen residents in the capital city, who were reached by phone and text messages.
“Can you hear the cheers and the clapping? Look, fireworks on my block,” said Ali, a businessman, in a video call from Iran.
In a televised address, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said that Israeli strikes had destroyed the “compound of the tyrant Khamenei,” a reference to the Pasteur gated compound that houses some of Iran’s most important political structures: Ayatollah Khamenei’s home and office; the presidential palace; and the Supreme National Security Council, location of all things related to national security and key foreign policy like negotiations with the United States.
Ahead of Saturday’s airstrikes, Ayatollah Khamenei took precautions to prepare the country and the regime for survival. He delegated the running of the country to one of his closest allies, the veteran politician Ali Larijani, who is the head of the National Security Council and has effectively sidelined President Masoud Pezeshkian.
“We will make the Zionist criminals and the dishonorable Americans regret it,” Mr. Larijani said on social media on Saturday. “The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will give the international tyrants who are going to hell an unforgettable lesson.”
Ayatollah Khamenei had also authorized a small circle of political and military allies to make decisions if he were to be killed or unreachable during a war, and named four layers of succession for senior military and political figures whom he personally appoints, according to six senior Iranian officials.
They include his chief of staff, Mr. Hejazi; Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Parliament and former commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps; and his top military adviser and former commander in chief of the Guards, Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi. The Israeli military said Mr. Hejazi had also been killed.
But it was unclear late Saturday who was in charge.
Days earlier, Mr. Araghchi, the foreign minister, told Iranian media that in the event of a war with the United States, “we may have lost some of our leaders, but this is not a big problem.”
“We have no limit in defending ourselves,” he said.
 "Ayatollah Khamenei killed in US-Israeli strikes: Who could lead Iran next?")
