A social media video, shared on X and verified, external by BBC Persian, shows some Iranians in Karaj celebrating the reported death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - before it was seemingly confirmed by Donald Trump.

US President Donald Trump has just posted on Truth Social to announce Khamenei's death, following earlier reports in Israeli and US media.

Image source, Mamlekate / X

Donald Trump has just announced that Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei has been killed. Here is his whole post on his Truth Social Platform:

Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead. This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS. He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do. This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country. We are hearing that many of their IRGC, Military, and other Security and Police Forces, no longer want to fight, and are looking for Immunity from us. As I said last night, “Now they can have Immunity, later they only get Death!” Hopefully, the IRGC and Police will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves. That process should soon be starting in that, not only the death of Khamenei but the Country has been, in only one day, very much destroyed and, even, obliterated. The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Image source, Reuters

More now on that Truth Social post from US President Donald Trump.

"This is not only justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans," he says.

"He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do."

"This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country," he adds.

"Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead," US President Donald Trump writes on Truth Social.

Iain Watson
Political correspondent

Earlier we reported the White House saying Donald Trump had spoken on the phone to Keir Starmer, and other world leaders.

Downing Street now confirms the call between the prime minister and President Trump.

They discussed the situation in the Middle East, says No 10.

The prime minister set out that the UK was taking part in "co-ordinated regional defensive operations" to protect British people and regional partners, following what they call Iran’s "indiscriminate" retaliatory strikes on allies in the region.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from West Palm Beach

We've just received word of what the White House - and the press corps - refer to as a "travel/photo lid".

In other words, this means that we will not see Donald Trump on-camera or in-person here in Palm Beach for the rest of today.

The reasons are unclear. Some I've spoken to have speculated that he may be waiting to have a better picture of the operation before answering questions from the press, or until US and Israeli intelligence are better able to assess what has been achieved so far.

He may, however, take to Truth Social or the White House social media accounts to provide more updates.

Initially, the plan was to fly back to Washington tomorrow evening and we have so far had no indication that there have been any changes.

Image source, Reuters

UN Secretary-General António Guterres is currently addressing the Security Council at an emergency meeting.

He says he is "not in a position to confirm" Israeli media reports that Iran's supreme leader has been killed.

Earlier, we brought you satellite imagery showing damage to the supreme leader's compound in Tehran following joint strikes from the US and Israel.

"Before and after" images now show the extent of the damage.

After the strike, the buildings are blackened and debris can be seen, with a column of smoke rising.

Unconfirmed media reports in Israel and the US say Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the strikes.

Image source, Airbus

Ghoncheh Habibiazad
Senior reporter, BBC Persian

It’s very difficult to get a clear picture of what’s going on inside Iran right now due to the internet outage.

Iran is now under a near-total internet blackout, according to NetBlocks, an internet monitoring agency.

As far as I know, there are still a few who are connected to the internet: those using satellite internet via Starlink, a few who have unrestricted access, such as some journalists, and some who connect momentarily through proxies and virtual private networks (VPNs).

This is not the first time Iran has cut access to the internet. The same happened during the Iran-Israel 12-day war in June, and also during Iran’s recent deadly protests which started in late December.

During the 12-day war, officials cited "cyberattacks by the enemy" as the reason for cutting off access to the internet. We're yet to see an official reason given for the outage this time.

Image source, ISNA/WANA/Reuters

Donald Trump has spoken to US allies in the Middle East and Nato head Mark Rutte, the White House says.

"President Trump has spoken with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says in a post on X.

In the past 15 minutes, Leavitt adds the president has also spoken to "leaders of the UK, Kuwait and Turkey".

Rachel Scott, senior political correspondent at ABC News, says Donald Trump just told her he "believes" Iran's supreme leader is dead.

When asked if he knew "definitively", Trump reportedly said: "I don't want to say anything definitively until I see things but we believe he is.

"And much of their leaders are gone. Not only from the one site but two other sites we that we attacked also. We had great intelligence and so we think much of leadership is gone."

The US president also just spoke to NBC News by phone, and reportedly also told them about the reports of Khamenei's: "We feel that is a correct story."

President Trump has been speaking to NBC News by phone - and they asked about reports that Iran's supreme leader had been killed by US-Israeli airstrikes.

"I have spoken to a lot of people, we feel that is a correct story," Trump reportedly told the US broadcaster.

"A large number of their leaders have also been killed," he added, repeating what he told ABC News.

He also told NBC News the US operation in Iran has "already been a success".

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it has "eliminated" the Iranian regime's defence leadership in what it calls its "opening salvo" of attacks.

According to a social media post, this includes Ali Shamkhani, advisor for security affairs, Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Aziz Nasirzadeh, minister of defence.

In its post, the IDF shares images and profiles of these three officials, and others it claims to have eliminated.

There is no mention of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said there were "growing signs" he was "gone".

Image source, IDF

President Trump tells ABC News that US strikes have "done such damage already" and that "a lot" of Iran's leadership is gone.

"We don’t know all, but a lot of it is," Trump says in a phone interview. The president also says the US has "a very good idea" of who the next batch of Iranian leaders will be.

Asked about who will replace Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Trump then tells NBC: "I don’t know, but at some point they’ll be calling me to ask who I’d like."

He adds: "I'm only being a little sarcastic when I say that."

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Traveling with the President

Image source, White House

I'm still in Palm Beach, where we have yet to see any indication that the press will be called to see President Trump today.

I did, however, just get off a short briefing call in which senior administration officials laid out their case for the strikes that took place today.

According to those officials, the threat was both Iran's desire to acquire nuclear weapons and - in the shorter term - their conventional weapons capability, which one of the officials highlighted has been seen today across the region.

The US had indications that the Iranians intended to use those missiles, potentially preemptively, against US troops in the region.

This, they added, was not something President Trump would allow to happen.

"We cannot continue to live in a world where these people not only possess missiles, but the ability to make 100 of them a month," one official said.

The US also believed that Iran was negotiating from a point of weakness after recent internal instability and that, in essence, they were looking to buy time.

Additionally, US intelligence came to believe that Iran was attempting to mask its stockpiling of fissile materials and had re-built manufacturing capacity that was destroyed by Operation Midnight Hammer, the US strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities last year.

It is unclear when Trump will speak directly, but the officials said the president and other administration officials would speak more in the coming days.

Ghoncheh Habibiazad
Senior reporter, BBC Persian

We've seen conflicting reports on whether Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei survived earlier US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Iran Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei earlier said on ABC News that both Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian are “safe and sound”.

The head of public relations at the office of Khamenei, Seyyed Mehrdad Seyyed Mahdi, says that “the enemy has resorted to psychological warfare. We should all be careful about it”, the semi-official ISNA news agency reports.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there's "growing signs" that Khamenei is "gone".

In different neighbourhoods in Tehran, people are cheering and celebrating, sources tell BBC Persian - people are honking horns, screaming in celebration, they say.

Earlier, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said there were "growing signs" that Iran's supreme leader is "gone", but this has not yet been confirmed.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been supreme leader since 1989, is the most powerful figure in Iran.

He is head of state and commander-in-chief.

He also has authority over the national police and the morality police.

Khamenei controls the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is in charge of internal security, and its volunteer wing, the Basij Resistance Force - used to quell dissent in Iran.

Following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying there are "growing signs" that Iran's supreme leader is "gone", we are seeing unconfirmed reports that he has been killed by US-Israeli strikes.

Reuters, citing a senior Israeli official, reports that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's body has been found.

Axios, citing a source, says Israeli ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter has informed US officials that Khamenei was killed in the strike on his compound in Tehran.

And multiple Israeli outlets, including News 12 and Times of Israel, are citing Israeli officials also claiming that the supreme leader has died.

Image source, Reuters

There are several options for "off ramps" to de-escalation after the US' military operation in Iran, Donald Trump says.

"I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days and tell the Iranians: 'See you again in a few years if you start rebuilding [your nuclear programme],'" he tells Axios.

It's the first time the US president has commented on the operation since announcing the strikes on Saturday morning.

He says he finally took the decision to green-light the strikes due to the lack of progress over nuclear negotiations this week.

"The Iranians got close and then pulled back — close and then pulled back. I understood from that that they don't really want a deal," he says, according to the US outlet, which says they spoke to Trump for five minutes over the phone.