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Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has made his first public appearance following a 12-day conflict involving US and Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The 85-year-old appeared smiling on Saturday at a packed Tehran mosque – after reports he had spent days in a “secure location”.
This marks Khamenei’s first appearance since the hostilities began on June 13, with Israeli forces initiating a surprise round of air raids targeting Iran’s nuclear sites.
The US joined in days later, bombing three major sites on June 22 – including the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Facility.
Reports suggest that during the aggressive Israeli strikes, several leading Iranian military figures and nuclear experts were killed, prompting Khamenei to initially withdraw from the public eye.
Since the start of the air war, he has given only prerecorded speeches – sparking rumours about his safety.
But footage aired by Iranian state media on Saturday showed the leader smiling and waving to a crowd of chanting supporters at a mosque.
Dozens of people were seen attending the event to mark Ashura – the holiest day of the Shia Muslim calendar.
His appearance comes 11 days after the ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
Khamenei at the time said on state TV that Iran had dealt a “slap to America’s face” with a missile strike on a US airbase in Qatar.
He said: “The American regime entered a direct war because it felt that if it did not, the Zionist regime would be completely destroyed.
“However, it gained no achievements from this war.
“Here, too, the Islamic Republic emerged victorious, and in return, the Islamic Republic delivered a severe slap to America’s face.”
US President Donald Trump took to social media to mock the claim and bragged that he had personally blocked an attempt to kill Khamenei.
In a Truth Social post, Trump raged: “I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH.
“And he does not have to say, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!’
“I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life.”
Israeli officials had openly hinted that Khamenei was “not off the table” as a potential target during the air war.
But at the start of the war Trump claimed that while Khamenei was an “easy target”, the US was “not going to take him out… at least not for now”.
The US president also blasted the supreme leader’s claims that Iran won the war.
He wrote: “Why would the so-called ‘Supreme Leader,’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war-torn Country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the War with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie, it is not so.
“As a man of great faith, he is not supposed to lie.”
It comes as Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi – one of Iran’s most hardline clerics – issued a religious fatwa calling for the deaths of both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, branding them “enemies of God”.
What is a fatwa?
By Sayan Bose, Foreign News Reporter
A fatwa is a formal ruling or interpretation on a point of Islamic law issued by a Marja – a title given to the highest level of Twelver Shia religious cleric.
It calls on Muslims, including the Islamic governments and individuals, to ensure its enforcement.
In countries where Islamic law forms the basis of the legal system, a fatwa can be binding.
A fatwa issued by Iran’s first Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1988 led to the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners – including some reportedly as young as 13 – during a two-month crackdown.
The 1988 executions were revealed in the memoirs of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, one of Ayatollah Khomeini’s closest advisors who went on to condemn the act.
In his memoirs, he accused prisoners of “waging war against God” and urged Death Commissioners in charge of the mass killings to “show no mercy”.
Another well-known Fatwa was issued against novelist Salman Rushdie in 1989 following the publication of his book, which was considered offensive by some within the Islamic community.
In 2022, a man allegedly sympathetic to the Iranian regime attempted to attack Rushdie during a public event in New York.
