Donald Trump Says Iranian Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Dead

JAKARTA - US President Donald Trump claimed that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a joint US-Israeli attack.

"Khamenei, one of the most evil people in history, has been killed," Trump wrote on social media, Saturday, February 28, 2026, without providing evidence for his statement.

While Tehran stated that its leader was still safe. Trump said Khamenei could not avoid the United States' advanced intelligence and tracking system, and said his country's close cooperation with Israel made the Iranian leader and a number of other officials unable to escape.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman told US media that their supreme leader was safe, but provided no evidence to support the claim.

Previously, the Russian news agency Sputnik reported that Iranian Vice President Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah said President Masoud Pezeshkian was in good health after the joint attack by Israel and the United States on Saturday.

"Despite the cowardly attacks of the Zionist regime and the United States during the negotiations, Pezeshkian is in completely good health," Ghaempanah wrote on the X platform.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Baghaei also said Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was not injured in the attack.

"Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is fine," Baghaei was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.