Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, religious cleric who ruled Iran for decades, killed in strikes
After the 1989 death of Khomeini, who was the first supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Khamenei was not considered his natural successor. He was named as a candidate by a potential rival, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and won the support of other clerics. Over the next decade, Khamenei positioned the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps…