DUBAI – Some Iranians grieved while others celebrated the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, exposing a deep fault line in a country stunned by the sudden demise of the man who ruled for 36 years.
Iranian state TV announced his death in the early hours of Sunday (March 1), the voice of the broadcaster breaking with emotion as he confirmed Khamenei had been killed in the US-Israeli attack on Saturday. Footage from Tehran showed mourners packed into a square, dressed in black and many of them weeping.
But videos posted on social media showed joy and defiance elsewhere, with people cheering as a statue was toppled in the city of Dehloran in Ilam province, dancing in the streets of Karaj city, near Tehran in Alborz province, and celebrating in the streets of Izeh in Khuzestan province.
In the town of Galleh Dar in southern Iran, people knocked down a monument commemorating Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic in 1979, a video on social media showed.
“Am I dreaming? Hello to the new world!” a man can be heard shouting in the video, as fires burned on a traffic circle where the monument was toppled, prompting cheers and applause.
Reuters has verified the locations of these videos.
Another video showed people celebrating in the town of Lapuee in southern Iran outside the house of a 15-year-old teenager, Pooya Jafari, who was shot dead during anti-government protests in January.
Thousands of Iranians were killed during a crackdown on anti-government protests in January, the deadliest wave of unrest since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Trump and Israel will pay ‘heavy price’
Announcing the attack on Iran on Saturday, US President Donald Trump urged Iranians to seize the moment to topple the government.
At a rally mourning Khamenei’s death in Tehran, one man said the news had filled him with hatred “towards Israel and America. We must avenge the blood of the leader.”
“We said last night until the morning that God willing, it is a lie. Unfortunately, it was the truth,” said a woman mourning Khamenei’s death, in a pool report via WANA.
Khamenei’s rule faced numerous waves of unrest over the decades, including student-led protests in 1999 and 2002, unrest in 2009, and the more recent “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests of 2022, triggered by the death of a young woman while she was in the custody of the morality police.
A 33-year-old woman from Isfahan said she began crying from a mix of joy and disbelief when she heard Khamenei was dead.
Speaking to Reuters from Iran, she said she joined others dancing in the street to “share my happiness with my people”, expressing hope that his death would mean the end of the Islamic Republic.
She declined to be named for fear of reprisal.
But Atousa Mirzade, a primary school teacher in the central city of Shiraz, said she could not be happy about the country’s leader being killed by a foreign power.
“I also cannot be happy because I don’t know what will happen to our country. We saw what happened in Iraq – chaos and bloodshed. I would prefer the Islamic Republic to that situation.”
University student Hossein Dadbakhsh, 21, in Mashhad, said Iran would avenge its leader.
“I am ready to sacrifice my life for Islam and for my Imam Khamenei. The Zionist regime and Trump will pay a heavy price for the martyrdom of my leader,” he said by phone, his voice trembling with emotion.
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