The assassination of Iran’s ayatollah – and fears for a wider conflict

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0:10Today, the assassination of the Ayatollah.

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0:58We must be in the midst of the peace of the country. He survived imprisonment, assassination attempts, decades of protests, and exerted a brutal iron grip on Iran's 90 million people.

1:17Now, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is dead. Killed by US and Israeli airstrikes that leveled his compound where he and some of the most senior regime leaders were sheltering.

1:44As news of the Ayatollah's death emerged, there was public mourning on the streets of Iran.

1:53but also ecstatic celebrations inside Iran and around the world.

2:02This is a big day. This is like the Berlin Wall is being followed. So this is a significant victory for Iranian. It's a significant victory for the peace in the entire world. This is the overcoming of the light to the darkness. Meanwhile, Iran has launched retaliatory strikes and vows vengeance.

2:26It is still unclear whether his assassination will bring about the regime change that Donald Trump so clearly desires, or what will happen next for Iran, where the airstrikes continue and the death toll is spiralling. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. this will be probably your only chance for generations.

2:50Patrick Wintour:It's absolutely transformational. If Donald Trump succeeds in what he's attempting to do, which is to change the regime in Iran, you have changed the whole political landscape of the Middle East. From The Guardian, I'm Annie Kelly. Today in Focus. After a weekend that changed everything, what next for Iran and the world?

3:21Patrick Wintour, you're The Guardian's diplomatic editor, and we are speaking to you on Sunday, 24 hours after Israel and the US launched extraordinary military strikes against Iran. How did you feel when you heard the news that Khamenei, Iran's 86-year-old supreme leader, had been assassinated?

3:39Patrick Wintour:Well, it was an incredible shock because it's such a moment of transition for Iran. I mean, in a way, Iran has been waiting for the moment where he would die through natural causes. But the way he's been killed by Israel and America is quite astonishing because it also, it happens slowly in the sense that rumors started to circulate, coming mainly from Israel, that he had been struck. And then there were sort of half denials by the Iranian government. And then finally this admission. What it will now mean politically is just it's an earthquake. You've been reporting on Iran for decades now. How did you feel about this?

4:25This must have been a kind of extraordinary moment for you as well.

4:27Patrick Wintour:I feel probably like many people extremely torn in the sense that I don't have much love for this regime. And I've reported on a large number of people who've been kept in Iranian jails quite wrongly. At the same time, I feel in a way ambivalent about the way in which this has happened, because this is at one level an extrajudicial killing. And it's yet another example of what used to be the rules-based order being totally ignored and thrown in the dustbin of history. Could you just talk us through the timeline of these strikes and what's happened since? Well, they started at around six o 'clock UK time, a bit later in Tehran.

5:14Patrick Wintour:The first warnings of strikes occurred in the sense that there were loud explosions in Tehran. And then it became clear that this was the attack that the Iranians had been fearing. Media reports say blasts have been heard in Esfahan, Karaj, Kelman Shah, Rom, and the port city of Boucher. And the strikes themselves, could you tell us a bit about what was hit and what casualties there have been? So some of the very first attacks were on the president and on the supreme leader's sort of compound and there's been pictures of that compound, satellite pictures of the compound showing it totally incinerated, a charred ruin and from there these deaths have occurred and probably it's from there that in that rubble the body of the supreme leader was found, because the initial account from the Iranians was that they had been anticipating this attack and that the supreme leader was not in Tehran.

6:15Patrick Wintour:He was somewhere secure elsewhere. Well, that emerged to be untrue. The targets have been similar to what happened last June, which is to attack the missile bases, to attack the launch pads for these missiles to attack the headquarters and regional headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is the centerpiece of the Iranian security forces. They've killed the commander of the IRGC. They've killed the commander of the armed forces. They have not managed to kill the president, which is the second time they've tried to assassinate him, Masoud Pesheshkian and they haven't killed Ali Larijani who is the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and is now going to be a very important figure I think in Iranian politics.

7:06There was also this devastating strike on a school wasn't there which resulted in the loss of life of hundreds of young children.

7:12Patrick Wintour:Yes I mean there's a very unpleasant dispute that starts to occur in these incidents, which is whether the school was attached to an IRGC headquarters, and also whether the source of the explosion was an Israeli or American bomb, or whether in fact it was some kind of stray IRGC missile. But either way, more than 100 people have been killed, most of them young children. And there's also a tragedy of, I think, mainly teenage girls who've been killed in a sports hall, maybe 20 there. So there are civilian deaths and there is going to be these disputes as to how it happened.

8:07Could you tell us a bit about the counterattacks that Iran launched in response?

8:12Patrick Wintour:Yeah, they've been quicker than last time in terms of being prepared to strike not only at Israel, but also American bases right across the region.

8:28Patrick Wintour:And so they've struck in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, I think, and also in Jordan. So they warned that they were going to do this and they went around the region saying this was going to be their response. And they are trying to draw a distinction between invading the sovereignty of these Gulf states and the attack on the bases. But I think what's inevitably happening is that some of these drones and missiles are missing their targets. So I think the airport terminal in Kuwait was struck. High-rise buildings have been struck. Panic, chaos and injuries at the Dubai airport overnight.

9:12Shahid drone striking a luxury hotel in Dubai's Palm Jumeirah. Oh, my God.

9:20Patrick Wintour:I think it's one of the most sensitive issues for Iran now is whether they're going to be able to prevent the anger that is simmering inside the leaderships, particularly the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, about what Iran is doing and whether they're going to have to pull back on that. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, they're walking a real tightrope, aren't they? They need to be shown to be retaliating and trying to hit those bases. It's also some of, I guess, their last remaining allies in the region as well. It's a hugely complicated situation. Can you just explain to listeners how big a moment is this?

9:56I mean, this is huge, isn't it?

9:58Patrick Wintour:Yes, it's transformational because this regime has been in power since 1979. It's built up an astonishing array of proxy forces across the region, which have been weakened in the last two to three years. The Americans now seem to be bent on bringing about a change in leadership inside Iran. And what they're attempting to do is to bring in a government much more favourable, not only to America, but to the rest of the Middle East. So the whole fulcrum or the tension point inside the Middle East will have been removed if this succeeds. Coming in and taking out the supreme leader is in itself the most audacious act.

10:43Could you tell us a bit about who the Ayatollah was? he was 86, ruled Iran for almost 40 years. You've visited Iran many times during his rule. Can you tell us how the Ayatollah shaped Iran during his multi-decade rule?

10:59Patrick Wintour:He shaped it to ensure that it didn't change or move away from its absolute religious basis, its sheer religious basis. And you could take the example of the Women in Life Freedom protests, where he was absolutely adamant that the hijab should remain compulsory, that the relationship between men and women should be largely one of subjugation.

11:34Patrick Wintour:He just saw the West as a sinister plot. He saw Israel as a sinister plot. He saw the whole country as standing up in a way that no other country did to this threat that the West represented. One of the complexities of Iran is that when you go there, you meet elected politicians or diplomats. There is this veneer of democracy. There are elections, there are people who, and there are choices to be made about whether you back reformists or conservatives. but throughout that whole process, the Supreme Leader is the person that matters and he will make the decisions ultimately.

12:23Could you tell us what has been the reaction to his assassination inside Iran?

12:29Patrick Wintour:It's bifurcated, it's divided, as is the Iranian society. So I think by night there were celebrations about his death by some. And then today there's been an outpouring of grief in the streets of Tehran and elsewhere. So there's just reflects what Iran is going through at the present where many people hate him. They associate him with these appalling killings that happened when the protests occurred four weeks ago. They think he showed virtually no remorse after that. unlike the president, and basically blamed it on outsiders and Zionists and Israelis. One human rights group has already identified more than 6 ,000 of the dead, almost all protesters, though dozens were simply bystanders and more than 90 were children.

13:20And the counting has barely begun.

13:24Patrick Wintour:So he is a figure of hatred for some and then adored by others. And this is what Iran is now. And also very confusing, difficult to understand exactly what the public response has been, because there are still going to be potential repercussions for people who would be seen celebrating. But despite this, there have been some really quite moving videos, haven't there, of people shouting to each other between tower blocks in Tehran, and people have been coming out in the streets and celebrating. It is a risk to celebrate the death of the Supreme Leader. I you just cannot do in the Iranian society is to criticize the supreme leader.

14:06Patrick Wintour:There is this kind of political discourse that does happen, but one of the boundaries, one of the no-go areas is to criticize the supreme leader specifically. But how it will play out now is obviously going to be fascinating. I mean, the leadership that survived is really pressing the button of national unity as much as possible, warning that what America and Israel are trying to do is to divide the country. There's always this great fear that Iran will fragment, that its constituent parts, the Kurds, Azerbaijanis, will all kind of divide and that the whole country will break up. And that's a kind of fear that the Iranian leadership are now playing very hard in their response to his death.

14:52And what's been the rhetoric coming out from those still in power inside Iran? Have they been threatening retribution for his death?

15:01Patrick Wintour:Yes, I mean, inevitably the promise that they will ensure that revenge is wreaked. The reality is whether they have got enough missiles, enough firepower to continue for much longer, there is going to be a limit to what they're going to be able to do militarily. And despite all the efforts they've so far in terms of trying to attack American bases in the Gulf, They haven't been that many big successes. So whether there's going to be just a moment of exhaustion when they realise they just don't have the military means to defeat America, how do they sue for peace is going to be a huge, huge issue, and who does it?

15:44Patrick Wintour:I think whether the choice of the next Supreme Leader could lead to a kind of discussion in Washington as to how much further they want to go with this. If it's a very hard line figure, then you could see America continuing with the military offensive. But if there's some signal coming out from Tehran that there will be a political change, then you might see Trump hold back for a bit. What about Iranians abroad? What's been the reaction from the diaspora? The bulk of the diaspora is absolutely going to be delighted. I mean, this is what they've been craving for for years and years. and so many have left the country, so many talented people have left the country because they found it so stifling.

16:28Patrick Wintour:And I don't know how many would want to go back if there was a different political climate in Iran. I'm sure many would. Hi, my name is Karin. I'm an Iranian. I'm a free Iran. Down with the regime. We only stand with our people. And yeah, hopefully home soon. And many of them have been calling for the return of the son of the Shah, the former monarch of Iran, haven't they? One of the big issues is whether the son of the Shah, Rizal Pahlavi, is going to be this transitional figure that he wants to be and whether he will return to Iran and he will be feted as the next leader. That would be an extraordinary turnaround because he himself, his family were thrown out for being corrupt, vicious and politically just totally in lockstep with the West.

17:22Patrick Wintour:And so it's extraordinary that so many young kids seem to want to shout his name and want him back. And it's almost weirdly, he's become a symbol of a monarchy, he's become a symbol of modernity. And also, you know, the fact that maybe this is just because there is a lack of other alternatives in terms of opposition figures. Most of the political opposition are either under house arrest or in jail. Even in the last few weeks, some of the key reformist characters who helped Pesach Kham be elected were themselves arrested for having criticised the way in which the security forces had dealt with the protests.

18:02Patrick Wintour:It's very difficult to see how an internal political opposition can work.

18:20And these strikes came as the US and Iran were actually supposed to be negotiating over Iran's nuclear capabilities, which that the mood music on Friday, especially from Amman, was that these talks were going well, that they were serious, they were active, they saw a road to a deal. I read in one of your recent pieces that the Armani foreign minister had even rushed to the US to try and explain the fact that progress had been made and that Iran had agreed to zero stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, access for things like the International Atomic Energy Agency, and that US weapons inspectors might even be allowed inside Iran alongside the inspectors from the UN.