The wife of late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died after succumbing to injuries sustained in recent US-Israeli strikes, Iranian media reported.
Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, 79, had been in a coma since Saturday’s strikes that killed Khamenei, the Tasnim news agency said, as reported by AFP.
Who was Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh?
She was born in 1947 in Mashhad, Iran, into a religious family with a business background. Her father, Mohammad Esmaeil Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, was a well-known businessman in the city. In 1964, at the age of 17, she married Ali Khamenei and the couple had six children, four sons and two daughters, including Mojtaba Khamenei.
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During her husband’s political career, first as president of Iran from 1981 to 1989 and later as supreme leader, she remained largely out of the public eye and maintained a very private life.
Khamenei positioned Iran as a staunch opponent of Israel and a decisive obstacle to US efforts to exert influence in the Middle East. His long-standing distrust and resentment of the United States, rooted in Washington’s past meddling in Iranian affairs and his support for the monarchy that once imprisoned him, shaped Iranian political life throughout his leadership. He often described Israel as a “cancerous tumor” in the region and called for its destruction.
Conflict between Iran and Israel
Iran and Iran-backed militias fired missiles at Israel and several Arab countries and reportedly hit the US embassy compound in Kuwait, while Israel and the United States carried out strikes on Iranian targets, the AP reported.
The conflict escalated on Monday, accompanied by defiant statements and mounting casualties.
Amid the chaos, the US military announced that Kuwait had “accidentally shot down” three US F-15E Strike Eagle jets during a combat operation.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported at least 555 deaths in Iran from the US-Israeli campaign, with more than 130 cities affected. In Israel, 11 people were killed and in Lebanon, authorities reported 31 victims.
Tensions in West Asia
The current conflict is already much more serious than last year’s Israeli-Iranian confrontation, in which the United States got involved almost at the end with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, and Iran responded with a targeted attack on the American base in Qatar.
This time, hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks forced people to seek safety in Gulf countries that had previously experienced relative stability.
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The United Arab Emirates reported a disturbance at Dubai’s main airport, with residents and tourists responding to sounds of interceptors. Saudi Arabia said it detected the attacks and summoned Iran’s ambassador. Top diplomats from six Gulf states stressed their “right to self-defence”.
Oil prices rose sharply on Sunday as traders anticipated possible supply disruptions from the strategically important region. Attacks on or near the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil choke point, have further raised concerns about energy supplies.
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have called on the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the government in Tehran, which has been a longtime adversary of Israel and the United States since the 1979 Islamic revolution toppled the pro-Western Shah.
(With input from agencies)
