Protesters in New York City chanted “death to America, death to Israel” in Farsi at a vigil honoring late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in New York City on Friday night, shortly after clashes erupted with counter-protesters, resulting in multiple arrests.

The 86-year-old Iranian supreme leader was killed in Tehran on Saturday in the initial joint US-Israeli airstrikes that started the war, with his death confirmed by the Iranian government the following day.

Protesters set up images of Khamenei on two tables alongside flowers and candles, with signs reading, “Solidarity with Iran.” Other pictures included US civil rights leader Malcolm X and George Floyd, and the display table also carried copies of zines with titles such as “Zionism and Racist Landlords” and “ICE & Friends.

The event, held in Washington Square Park, was billed as both a memorial for Khamenei — whose death was dubbed by those present as an “assassination by US government forces” — and for “all martyrs of Amerikan [sic] imperialism.”

“We must live like the ayatollah did, with his heart for his people, and we must die like he did,” a speaker told the crowd.

The protesters chanted, “Death to the IDF,” and, “Al Qassam you make us proud, kill another soldier now,” a reference to Hamas’s Al Qassam Brigades. One man waved a Hezbollah flag. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are US-designated terrorist groups.

The protest was endorsed by at least 18 smaller activist groups, such as the Bronx Anti-War Coalition, the far-left Workers World Party and Crown Heights Bites Back, according to a statement from organizers. The larger anti-Zionist activist groups in the city did not sign on.

Some of the organizers have had contact with the Iranian mission to the United Nations.

The Times of Israel

Demonstrators chant during a vigil honoring Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in New York, March 6, 2026. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)

A think tank has identified at least 27 UK universities where student societies and affiliated groups have mourned the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Evidence compiled by The Henry Jackson Society shows student groups - primarily Ahlul-Bayt or similarly aligned Islamic societies - have shared messages referring to Khamenei as a “martyr”, organised memorial events, or circulated content praising the Iranian regime.

Universities where such activity has been recorded include University College London, Cambridge, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, Southampton, Surrey, Cardiff, Glasgow, Brunel, Kingston, Westminster, King's College London and Imperial College London, among others.

Some societies organised commemorative events on campus, while others posted condolence graphics, shared vigil material or cancelled events “in honour of our beloved Shuhada”.

GB News

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the first weekend of the conflict | GETTY

"I am an individual with many faults and shortcomings" he said in his inaugural address, and "truly a minor seminarian". It was, at the time, an accurate self-assessment for a mid-ranking cleric in the hierarchical world of Shiite Islam." 

"Over the next four decades, this seemingly unqualified cleric who rose to the top almost by chance would become one of the world's longest-serving autocrats, confounding every American president since George H.W. Bush. He would at one point become the most powerful man in the Middle East, dominating five failing lands -- Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza."

"This ambition and hubris also led to his downfall. He came to govern with the hypervigilance and brutality of a man driven by the idea that much of his own society and the world's greatest superpower sought to unseat him -- which, in the end, it did."

Karim Sadjadepour, senior fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace  

Born in Mashhad, second of eight children of a cleric in 1939, Ali Khamenei was enrolled in religious education by age five where his formative years were spent in the Mashhad seminary. He failed to attain senior religious credentials. A family formula repeated by his second-oldest son Mojtaba, now elevated to the position his father vacated on his death. Reputed to be even more averse to human rights than his father Ali, Mojtaba, a pedestrian cleric, but an enthusiastic dabbler in pricey real estate, has achieved a fortune, just like his father; real estate investments in world capitals took precedence over religious matters.

 

In his early 20s, Ali Ayatollah became acquainted with the politics of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni, who was considered an Islamist cleric of the first order. He was also a harsh critic of the more secularist Shah of Iran who exiled him in 1964. One of Ayatollah Khomeini's passionate admirers for his defiance of royal authority, in Khomeini's exiled absence, Ali Khamenei spouted his mentor's positions on Islamic government for Iran. He gained distinction in this passion for negating authority, by six arrests and solitary confinement. 

 

When Shah Pahlavi was deposed with the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overtook 2,500 years of Persian monarchy, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to rule over a new Islamic Republic, raising Khamenei from obscurity to the position of president of the Islamic Republic. Following a decade of rule, Ayatollah Khomeini died just as its brutal eight-year conflict with Iraq came to an end. With no clear successor to his rule, Ali Khamenei was named, and took on the title of Ayatollah, to become Iran's Supreme Leader as Grand Ayatollah.

 

Khamenei, while presenting himself as a religious leader with no pretensions to personal wealth in fact accumulated vast wealth accessed through Iranian private property seized by the theocratic state. While Khamenei's decrees and authority ensured that the population of the Islamic Republic had no access to international finance, nothing deterred him from building immense financial wealth. He took state funds to spend billions from energy extraction in funding his "axis of resistance" in the Middle East, while Iranians suffered the economic impact of sanctions and inflation.

 

The Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel with an orgy of sadistic savagery in the commission of mass rapes, large-scale slaughter and atrocities on a Medieval scale of torture and mutilations of children, entire families immolated in their homes, abductions and destruction committed by thousands of Palestinian terrorists represented a triumph of 'resistance' to 'occupation' of Zionists in the Middle East to Khamenei who celebrated the shattering event. 

 

Israel's response against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Houthis in Yemen, all terror proxies of Iran, began to destroy the Islamic Republic's 'ring of fire' around the Jewish state, that was meant for its destruction. The axis of resistance was wholly diminished by the Israel's assassination of Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, along with the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. 

 

When Israel and the United States struck Iran in June of 2025 in a 12-day war against military installations, assassinating elite Revolutionary Guards commanders and regime authorities, while the U.S. dropped bunker-busting bombs on nuclear sites, Ayatollah Khamenei was mysteriously absent, hidden away for safety before finally emerging with the raids completed, to declare victory for Iran. 

 

Iran celebrated that victory months later when cities across the country were engulfed in huge anti-regime demonstrations, with Iranian citizens demanding the end of theocratic rule. Ayatollah Khamenei ordered the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their Basij police offshoots to spare no efforts in cracking down on the dissenters using all means necessary to halt any further demonstrations against the government. The deadly crackdown led to an estimated 30,000 citizens being killed, tens of thousands of Iranian citizens injured and arrested. 

 

Now in its death throes, the Islamic Republic has devoted itself to instituting a dynastic follow-up to the death of the Supreme Leader, replacing him with a man cloned in his image in every conceivable way. The IRGC will not go easily. Its command structure swiftly replaces those that are extinguished. Their reason for existence is to continue the strategy mapped out for them first by Khomeini, then by Khamenei, to ensure that Shia Islam dominates the numerically superior Sunni form of Islam by conquest. And to destroy any vestiges of the West and democracy in the Middle East, beginning with Israel. 

 

Members of the Iranian community in Sydney celebrate after US-Israeli air strikes killed Ali Khamenei, March 1. David Gray/AFP via Getty Images

 

"It is absolutely unacceptable that those leaders who are incapable of fulfilling that duty [to make peoples' lives better] use the smoke of war to hide their failures and, in the process, line the pockets of a few -- the only ones who win when the world stops building hospitals to start making missiles."

"You can’t respond to one illegality with another because that’s how humanity’s great disasters begin."

"You can’t play Russian roulette with the destiny of millions … Nobody knows for sure what will happen now. Even the objectives of those who launched the first attack are unclear. But we must be prepared, as the proponents say, for the possibility that this will be a long war, with numerous casualties and, therefore, with serious economic consequences on a global scale."

"We are not going to be complicit in something that is bad for the world and is also contrary to our values and interests, just out of fear of reprisals from someone."

"MAGA-style leaders may say that our country can’t handle taking in so many migrants — that this is a suicidal move, the desperate act of a collapsing country. But don’t let them fool you. Spain is booming." 

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez 

President Donald Trump greets Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez during a summit to support ending the more than two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal, Monday, October 13, 2025, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

"Iran represents a miscalculation for Spain."

"The U.S. will find other ports or bases from which to launch its operations. Spain gains nothing from this equation and risks reinforcing its position as a political opponent at a particularly sensitive moment."

"Energy prices could ultimately derail the current government."

Joan Luis Manfredi, senior lecturer in foreign policy, University of Castilla-La Mancha 

 

"Sanchez has been the European leader who most consistently and publicly has pushed back against the things Trump has done that he doesn't like."

His public criticism is even more noticeable given the studied silence of most other European leaders."

Amanda Sloat, professor, IE University, Spain  

This would be the very same Spanish Prime Minister who has accused Israel of  'genocide' against the Palestinians in Gaza and succeeded in imposing an arms embargo on Israel. He also pronounced Spain's official recognition of a Palestinian state, along with France, the United Kingdom and Canada. That Hamas, the terrorist group governing Gaza precipitated the conflict in Gaza when it sent 6,000 of its operatives into southern Israel to embark on a orgy of rape, torture and slaughter is immaterial to this man who feels one 'illegality' does not justify another.

 

Politicians, he waxed sanctimonious, should be engaged in making lives bettee for people; the attack by the United States and Israel on Iran, in his opinion, was 'illegal' and unjustifiable. As the most senior socialist leader in the European Union, more radically left than even Britain's Keir Starmer, Sanchez stands alone in his outright denunciation of the President of the United States, eschewing diplomacy for the more direct route of full frontal accusation.

 

As a self-declared pacifist, it seems nothing -- no provocation, no empathy for a people suffering under the yoke of Islamofascism exercised by a theocratic government, nor outrage over the Islamic Republic's threats to annihilate a neighbouring country, much less sponsor a coterie of diehard Jew-hating jihadists to do its bidding through a Shi'ite 'ring of fire' surrounding Israel threatening its existence through violent 'resistance' to its presence on ancient Judean land -- could persuade him that pre-emptive existential action is ever warranted.

 

The malign international presence of a theocracy that worships a god that demands total submission in every facet of life, including dedication to jihad in the interests of global Islamic domination, and awaits the return of the 'hidden Mahdi' whose appearance will presage Armageddon and the ascent of all faithfully loyal Muslims to heaven, while the world is destroyed, believes that the return can be hastened by a man-made catastrophe of immense dimensions -- which the possession of nuclear devices could certainly assist in, fazes Sanchez not at all.

 

Spain has minimal direct trade exposure to the U.S. within the euro zone; below average for exporters in the euro zone, but its dependence on gas imports from the United States represents a trade Achilles heel, at a time when President Trump threatens to cut off trade with Spain. "We don't want anything to do with Spain", said the U.S. president, leaving the possibility of an halt to commerce through a blanket 'embargo'.  Spain is a liquefied natural gas hub for Europe with the US. accounting for 31 percent of its recent supply, rising to 44 percent in January.

 

Pedro Sánchez addressed the nation the morning after President Trump said he did not want 'anything to do' with Spain. La Moncloa Handout

"I believe our position is not naive at all."

"We will not be complicit in something that is bad for the world, and is contrary to our values and interests simply out of fear of reprisals from somebody."

"Spain’s position is the same as in Ukraine or Gaza. No to the breakdown of international law that protects us all. No to resolving conflicts with bombs. No to war."

"The world has been here before. Twenty-three years ago, another U.S. administration led us into an unjust war. The Iraq War led to a dramatic increase in terrorism and a serious migration and economic crisis. That was the gift of the ‘Azores Three’ (George W. Bush, Tony Blair and former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar) : a more insecure world and a worse life."

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez 

Yes, the world HAS been here before; in 1938 to be precise, when Britain's Prime Minister 

Neville Chamberlain following the Munich Agreement, arrived back home to triumphantly proclaim: "Peace for our time".  

 

"The war in Iran has been well underway for a week. Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and much of the regime’s leadership are dead, more than two thousand targets have been struck across the country, and per U.S. Central Command, the U.S. military has “struck or sunk” more than thirty Iranian ships. Iran has retaliated in full force, unlike its token attack against U.S. forces in Qatar after Operation Midnight Hammer, striking military, civilian, and infrastructure targets in eleven countries so far."

"With the exception of China, Russia, and maybe North Korea, very few countries are going to cry tears for the loss of Khamenei, whatever their public posture on the U.S. and Israeli attacks at the moment. His regime wreaked havoc across the region, sponsored terrorism, and had challenged U.S. interests and the interests of Western and Gulf countries for some time. Nevertheless, there is still clearly some discomfort with the operation, from Capitol Hill to our European allies and throughout the Middle East. At the risk of stating the obvious, my sense is that this operation will ultimately be judged on its long-term outcome. If we end up with a more stable and peaceful region and a less hostile Iranian regime, it will be heralded as a resounding success. If, on the other hand, we find ourselves in a quagmire with ongoing chaos and conflict, there will be a lot of second-guessing."

Michael Froman, president, Council on Foreign Relations

Men watch from a hillside as a plume of smoke rises after an explosion on March 2, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

 

"It could be six, it could be eight, it could be three [weeks before operations are concluded]."

"[The U.S. has an] unlimited supply of weapons."

"Iran is hoping we cannot sustain this."

"Our capabilities are overwhelming and gathering still, as are those of our Israeli partners."

"Our munitions are full up."

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth  

If he isn't assassinated before being chosen, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's second-oldest son, himself a hard-line cleric, without being the Islamic Shi'ite elite scholar -- the 'pope' of Islam's Shia minority's faithful -- his father was, may yet be named as his successor, as the next leader of Iran. Mojtaba Khamenei, in that role is without doubt, a marked man. One whom President Trump considers a 'lightweight' with whom the regime's policies would remain sacrosanct. 

 

Some Middle East and Iran experts hypothesize that Iran's Islamic Republican Guard Corps who answered to no authority but that of the Supreme Leader, and now continue to follow through on his final instructions, are counting on the U.S. and Israel running out of munitions. For while the IRGC sets off inexpensive drones, its challengers are making use of expensive missiles to intercept them. Reckoning that if they can hold out against the U.S. and Israel long enough, victory will be theirs.

 

In the meanwhile, they continue to lob missiles and drones at their near neighbours, friends and foes alike. That part of their wartime schematic posits that if the IRGC places their Gulf neighbours under enough strain and stress, they will demand a cessation of hostilities; for the U.S. and Israel to pull back and leave off hammering the Islamic Republic. It was revealed that Russia not only has given Iran intelligence on U.S. installations in the Gulf, but is also supplying them with drones; a reversal of Iran supplying Shahed drones to Russia for its conflict with Ukraine. 

 

"Action to reduce pressure on oil is imminent", Mr. Trump said Thursday even as pump prices advanced to their highest level since 2024 in the U.S. ahead of November midterm elections. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is at a near total halt, leaving exporters to scramble for routes away from the region. A protracted war could "bring down the economies of the world", warned Qatar. Gulf energy exporters could shut production within weeks, it was predicted. 

 

A barrage of missiles and drones targeting Gulf countries overnight and into Friday sent powerful blasts into Kuwait and Bahrain. Dubai sent out missile alerts for the second day, on Friday. While maintaining airstrikes on the Islamic Republic, Israel "significantly expanded" its presence on the ground in Lebanon where Tehran-linked Hezbollah sent missiles into Israel and for their trouble saw a wave of airstrikes by Israel hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Shia Hezbollah's stronghold. 

 

Smoke rises after an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. As the conflict in the Middle East widens, Iran may find many of its traditional allies are reluctant to get directly involved. (Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)

 

The Islamic Republic, stated Iran's sidelined (by the IRGC) president Masoud Pezeshkian, is "committed to lasting peace", and to that end will continue to defend itself. For his part, Mr. Trump vowed to "totally demolish" Iranian forces, planning to "clean out" the Iranian leadership structure. So far in the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes, 1,332 people are estimated to have been killed, dozens others elsewhere in the region by Iran's retaliatory strikes, among them six U.S. troops. 

 

Overnight into Friday Arab states intercepted Iranian projectiles, with Bahrain revealing that the region's oldest refinery, a unit at its Sitra site, had caught fire, struck by a missile. An attack targeting the U.S. military facility at Al Udeid Air Base  was thwarted by Qatar, while multiple missiles and drones were intercepted overnight by Saudi Arabia where strikes were directed at a U.S. facility at Al Kharj near Riyadh, and the Aramco headquarters in the east.

 

Iran has launched 500 ballistic and cruise missiles plus 2,000 drones since the war's start; 60 percent at American targets located in Gulf states. South Korea is in talks with the U.S. in potential redeployment of weapons, Patriot air-defence systems among them, while France authorized U.S. military support aircraft to use Istres Air Base as long as they are not used in Iran operations. 

 

"UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!" wrote Trump Friday on Truth Social, demanding that Iran surrender, on the seventh day of the conflict. There will be no negotiations for the conflict's end. 

 

Strikes continue to hit Iran’s capital, Tehran, late Saturday night. CNN

 

"I believe God saved me. God saved my life. Nothing happened to me. Nothing happened to my house. Everything is going good."

"I just called the cops. I know who this person is."

"This person belongs to Khalistan."

"I feel scared. He tried to give me a warning. 'Shut your mouth. Don't raise your voice about this topic."

"I'm a Canadian citizen, but I don't feel safe in this country right now." 

Nancy Grewal, 46, deceased, Windsor, Ontario

"I don't feel safe here," Nancy Grewal said at her Windsor home in late February. (CBC)

"Investigators are confident this was not a random act of violence. Ms. Grewal's murder is being investigated as an intentional act against her."

"All information is being considered. While we recognize the significant public interest in this case, we will not share information that will compromise the investigation, including leads, tips, and investigative avenues."

LaSalle Police Chief Michael Pearce 

 

"It is very sad to hear about the loss of Nancy Grewal's life."

"We are not in the position to make any comment. Thank you."

India Canada Association Windsor and Essex County 

Nancy Grewal was stabbed to death at a home in LaSalle, Ontario Tuesday, where she was engaged as a personal support worker. She was also a social media influencer. She had a very large following on Instagram and YouTube where her postings were mostly in Punjabi with only a scant few in English. One of her English posts detailed an incident where a man poured gasoline on her front door to set her house on fire. She wanted all 'white Canadians' to know what was happening to her, as a fierce opponent of Sikh-Canadians known as 'Khalistanis'. A group agitating for a homeland carved out of India that they call 'Khalistan'.

 

As a Sikh herself, and one who opposed the violent separatist movement, she had been warned and threatened in relation to her involvement in the anti-Khalistan group. Ms. Grewal had reported the attempt to burn down her house to police, along with other complaints she had against the man she was able to identify to Windsor police. Police did not immediately reveal whether they had a suspect in custody over her murder, only that they were involved in a homicide probe.

 

Paramedics alongside LaSalle police had responded to a stabbing report on Tuesday evening where they found Nancy Grewal with stab wounds and rushed her to hospital. At the  hospital she "succumbed to her injuries". The news of her death quickly spread to India and elsewhere internationally. That her activism was the reason for her death seems indisputable. She is by no means the only Sikh-Canadian who had spoken out publicly and vehemently against the Khalistanis whom India considers a national security threat for their violent outbreaks.

 

The worst terrorist plot ever devised on Canadian soil was carried out by Sikh-Canadian Khalistanis in the bombing of Air India Flight 182, causing the deaths of 329 people in 1985. In 1998 Tara Singh Hayer, the editor of North America’'s largest Punjabi-language newspaper, was murdered. Ujjal Dosanjh, a former Sikh-Canadian premier of British Columbia was outspoken in his condemnation of the Khalistani movement in Canada for their violence, and himself became a victim of a dreadful beating. A visiting Indian parliamentarian was the victim of an unsuccessful plot to assassinate him on Canadian soil.

 

New Delhi has been exasperated that Canada refuses to deport Sikh Khalistanis wanted in India to stand on trial for violent crimes committed in India. While Khalistanis from time to time mount large, vocal public demonstrations against India and celebrate murderous Khalistanis who lost their lives in the commission of vile crimes, iconizing their photographs as 'national' weapons-carrying heroes, they also carried large posters of former Indian president Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, in jubilation of her murder.

 

Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a gurdwara leader who advocated for an independent Sikh state, known as Khalistan, in parts of present-day India. He was killed at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey in 2023, in a high-profile case that strained relations between Canada and India. Four Indian nationals have since been charged with first-degree murder in relation to the death. Still from video, CBC

 

Recent tensions between Canada and India over accusations that India had an involvement with the assassination of a prominent Vancouver-based Sikh Khalistani-agitator outside his gurdwara, saw the former allies at odds with one another. Nancy Grewal spoke out against that situation as well. She criticized former prime minister Justin Trudeau's crude diplomacy in accusing India of being responsible for the murder of the man, standing in Parliament to deliver his condemnation. Indian officials for their part, accuse Canada of failing to address "Sikh extremism".

 

Images  inside Gurdwara Khalsa Parkash in Windsor include images of martyrs with guns. (CBC)

 

The Sikh gurdwara in Windsor came under criticism from Nancy Grewal, for its prominent display of posters of revered dead Khalistanis known for their courage in fighting for that Khalistan 'homeland' by murdering opponents of separatism. "When we [are] going in the gurdwara, we need a peace and prayer. But everywhere you look at the gurdwara … all pictures with the AK-47s, guns", she said of the images of martyrs and their weapons in what should have been a peaceful space for prayers only. She spoke of her concern over the gurdwara's children's exposure to those posters' sentiments.  

 

Nancy Grewal, shown here with her dog, said she had received 40 death threats. (CBC)

 

"The radicals objected to her content and had an enmity with her."

"Two months ago unidentified miscreants set her house on fire [and she] reported to the police."

"I am grateful, she had so many people who loved her all over the world. She was so blessed to have so many people who loved her and the best thing was she never lied." 

Shinderpal Kaur, 70, Nancy Gerewal's mother, India 

 

"I think, for the moment, we're talking about lone wolves -- individual radicalization -- as you saw in Texas a couple of days ago."

"Jewish communities are less soft targets than they were two-and-a-half years ago. But I think they're still pretty inviting targets in terms of ... targets of opportunity."

"We had 20 years of the global war on terror, and then we figured out that we hadn't been paying sufficient attention to China. So you've seen this over-correction in American policy toward great-power competition."

"We are now at the apex of the emphasis of great-power competition over counter-terrorism."

"They're [governments] going to figure out that counter-terrorism is really significant." 

Ilan Berman, senior vice-president, American Foreign Policy Council, Washington 

 

"Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security."

"We support efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security. We do, however, take this position with regret because the current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order."

"Canada has long supported the imperative of neutralizing this grave global threat."

"It is a failure of the international system that this country repeatedly violated international laws, terrorized an entire region, and through extension the world, including the murder of Canadians."

"We would like international law to always and everywhere be respected. Canada's policy itself is to always and everywhere respect international law."

"Canada reaffirms that international law binds all belligerence [requiring a de-escalation of  hostilities]." 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

 

"I personally wish that Mr. Carney had not said anything in this regard. [Canadians] have no dog in that fight."

"[Carney's explicit public support for the U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran places] Canada within the bull's-eye [from a Tehran perspective]."

"People say it's one more example of Israel killing Muslims ... So I think that paints another target on Israel's back."

Phil Gurski, former counter-terrorism analyst, Canadian Security Intelligence Service 

Smoke rises above Tehran as US and Israeli strikes continue to rain down (Image: Getty)

 

Israel and the United States attacked the Islamic Republic of Iran in coordinated but separate aerial bombardments on Saturday. The regime's nuclear sites, government offices, elite government and military figures were targeted for assassination, including the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Compounds of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij police were flattened. The U.S. focused on destroying the Iranian maritime fleet. Israel struck at countless rocket launchers and weapons depots. 

 

And on Sunday the Iranian clergy Grand Ayatollah Nouri Hamedani and Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi from the presidium of the Assembly of Seminary Students and Scholars in Qom, issued fatwas, authorizing Muslims anywhere and everywhere to wreak revenge for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's assassination. It is fairly well known that government agents of Iran and IRGC operatives have infiltrated the west, they have assumed positions of influence to those countless Muslims now living in Canada and the United States who sympathize with Islamist jihad through Muslim Brotherhood affiliations.

 

Intelligence agencies in the U.S. and Canada are on the alert with the certain knowledge that retaliatory incidents could occur anywhere on their soil. It is anticipated that small-scale attacks by 'lone wolves' at the very least will occur as a result of the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran, prompted by the newly-issued fatwa. According to Mr. Gursky, small-scale targeted attacks with the use of guns, not bombs will be the likeliest to occur; even that criminal gangs could be contracted with by IRGC agents to carry them out.

 

The US launches a missile as part of Operation Epic Fury (Image: Getty)

 

This, without entirely ruling out a larger-scale event where Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah in particular with their well-established presence in both countries, might act in a concert of atrocities. As it is, Iran under attack, has lashed out in surprising ways, to launch missiles and drones throughout the Middle East, at Arab-Sunni states that are hostile to Tehran and Shiite-supporting states friendly to Iran, with equal abandon, sending countless missiles in an effort to fully involve the entire region. Lashing out in all directions could conceivably include much further abroad.

 

While Gurski points to Iran's transnational repression that targets diaspora communities such as Iranian-Canadians who deplore the regime, as being the likeliest targets in punishment of their hostility and agitation, M. Berman points out that retribution by Iran would make Jews vulnerable to violent attacks within both countries. Jewish schools, synagogues and community centres have been the focus of violent attacks in the past two years following the atrocities in southern Israel by Hamas on October 7, 2023. 

 

Counter-terrorism, both experts agreed, was the primary focus throughouy the 2000s, when the focus was in preventing jihadis -- al-Qaeda at the time primarily -- from executing attacks, followed by the Islamic State. Phil Gurski recalled that counter-terrorism at that time was "running to stay in place on jihadis", until former prime minister Justin Trudeau made the decision that the far right represented a larger, more imminently dangerous threat, and diverted resources to that presumed threat, from terrorism.

 

On the part of the United States, the diversion of attention to terrorism was overtaken by a perception of the need to focus on competition between the great political and economic powers that challenged American primacy. In the face of which the Middle East and Africa became afterthoughts of less concern, even while both regions ramped up their terrorist-jihad strides, leaving North American intelligence unprepared for the increased scale of their belligerent enterprises. "We're seeing that this problem set hasn't gone away", commented Mr. Berman wryly. 

 

 

"For 25 years, there has been a standing incitement to genocide, a stand-alone breach of the Genocide Convention."

"The ongoing missile attacks over the years means Israel is entitled to exercise its right of self-defence because of the standing and imminent threat of genocide."

"[The United Nations has provided] protective cover [for Iran rather than holding it to account for[ genocidal antisemitism."

"The problem has been that those who should have been protecting the rules-based order -- including the U.S. -- have, regrettably, abandoned transnational alliances and upended the rules-based international order."

"But that doesn't mean we have to acquiesce to Iran and its murderous proxies."

Irwin Cotler, former Canadian justice minister, human rights activist

A handout picture provided by the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office shows him greeting the crowd before addressing the nation on May 20, 2025 in Tehran.  Photo by -/KHAMENEI.IR/AFP via Getty Images

 

This is a man who was once part of the Government of Canada, and at that time a Liberal cabinet minister, decades ago. He has since fully immersed himself in human rights affairs, as a seasoned lawyer and dedicated human rights defender. Iran is just one egregious purveyor of human rights offences that Mr. Cotler has engaged with. But it is also the only source of an active lethal threat against him, that many might recognize as a fatwa. In 2024, Mr. Cotler was advised that Canadian intelligence services was aware of an active plot to assassination him, from Iran. To this day he remains under police protection.

 

Canada cut off diplomatic relations with Iran under the Conservative-led government of then-prime minister Stephen Harper. When Justin Trudeau became prime minister under the banner of a Liberal government he mused about the need to renew diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Much to the consternation of the large Iranian-Canadian population which had arrived in Canada following the 1979 Islamic Revolution to escape the excesses of the new fundamentalist Islamist government.

 

Despite the lack of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Iranian-Canadian citizens have noted with dismay and fear the increasing presence of Iranian officials linked to the regime, as well as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members, residing in Canada, walking its streets, establishing their families in Canada as a safe haven. Among them is the family of the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani. In the chaos of the joint Israeli-U.S. aerial attacks against the Iranian regime to destroy its nuclear facilities and ballistic missile launch sites, agents of the regime live in Canada.

 

Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), holds a press conference in Tehran, Iran. /Courtesy of Yonhap News

 

Many of them are in Canada illegally. Some among them are elite members or family members of the IRGC and the government. Many who are identified are meant to be deported, a process that has succeeded so far in deporting one single individual. In the past few years, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had elevated Ali Larijani to a powerful authority post that even the current president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian must report to. Before his death Khamenei tasked Larijani to take any and all measures to ensure the survival of the Islamic Republic. During the mass protests of January that roiled the country, Larijani oversaw the brutal lethal response that left thousands dead.

 

The Larijani family was second in influence and power only to the late Ali Khamenei. As a surviving member of the Iranian ruling elite, Larijani has control second to none now. While a governing council was struck to decide a successor to Ayatollah Khamenei, not much is done without Ali Larijani's approval and guidance. One of five Larijani brothers, serving top posts in the hierarchy of Iran's Islamic Republic he is now the power behind the throne of Shiite domination in the majority Sunni Middle East.

 

Two of his brothers are very familiar with Canada, having spent considerable time there, alongside their families. "The Larijani family is at the head of the Iranian state", a 2016 CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) analysis stated. Fazel Larijani was a cultural affairs attache at the Iranian embassy in Ottawa prior to diplomatic ties being severed in 2012. According to Iranian-Canadian anti-regime activists, Fazel's family continues to live in Canada. 

Iran's wartime power structure

 

The London-based Iran International outlet wrote of Bagher Ardeshir Larijani being granted permanent residency in Canada in 2016, which was rescinded ultimately on the basis of his having failed to live in Canada for a minimum of 730 days over a five-year period. Bagher's son, however, the report stated, "is now a Canadian citizen". There is much irony here in that Canada's large expatriate Iranian community organized immense demonstrations in celebration of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's death in an Israeli strike on his compound in Tehran.

 

The Iranian diaspora in Canada, one of the largest in the world, has warned for years that regime officials were present in their community, making use of Canada as a vacation destination, or alternately a safe haven where they could deposit their families. Morteza Talaei, a former police chief in Tehran who had been involved in the violent repressive response to Iran's 2003 demonstrations, had been reported by outraged Canadian Iranians having been seen working out at a Toronto gym. 

 

"Larijani is responsible for co-ordinating the response to the (January country-wide) protests on behalf of the Supreme Leader of Iran and has publicly called for Iranian security forces to use force to repress peaceful protesters" a report by the U.S. Department of the Treasury stated, leading to his being sanctioned on January 15. At a time when Larijani's nieces and nephews as well as  his own children lived and worked in the United States.

 

Despite barring entry of senior Iranian officials into Canada since 2022, Canada has been inexcusably tardy in removing Iranian officials from Canada. The Canada Border Services Agency, while tracking down 20 Iranian officials deemed ineligible to remain in Canada, managed to remove only one of those identified.  

"Based on their actions, there are reasonable grounds to believe that the IRGC has knowingly carried out, attempted to carry out, participated in or facilitated a terrorist activity, or has knowingly acted on behalf of, at the direction of, or in association with an entity that has knowingly carried out terrorist activity. Listing the IRGC means that they are a terrorist group."

"The decision to list the IRGC through the Criminal Code listing regime sends a strong message that Canada will use all tools at its disposal to combat the terrorist activity of the IRGC, conducted both unilaterally and in knowing association with listed terrorist entities such as Hizballah and Hamas."

"As a now-listed entity, the IRGC meets the definition of a “terrorist group” under Canada’s Criminal Code. As an immediate consequence of this listing, Canadian financial institutions, such as banks and brokerages, are required to immediately freeze the property of a listed entity. It is a criminal offence for anyone in Canada and Canadians abroad to knowingly deal with property owned or controlled by a terrorist group."

"Listing can also assist Canadian security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to combat terrorism, including by helping to facilitate the laying of terrorism charges against perpetrators and supporters of terrorism. The terrorist listings mechanism plays a key role in countering terrorist financing. A listing can also help block sympathizers in Canada from providing assistance to terrorist groups."

Public Safety Canada, June 19, 2024 

"The martyrdom of the Supreme Leader at the  hands of Israel and the criminal America was a great disaster for our country."

"With the power of God, we will continue the path of the Imam, the path of the dear leader, and the path of all those who seek justice in the world with power." 

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian

 

"Irrespective of what the guidelines say and what the politics may have been, it was always going to be improvisational."

"Under the circumstances of an existential conflict, the succession process is going to be very much dictated by the context of the moment."

Suzanne Maloney, vice-president, Brookings Institution

 

"The structure of the Islamic Revolution has been designed in such a way that after the martyrdom of any commander, at any rank or level, qualified and capable individuals immediately replace them."

Fars News Agency

 

"The succession process is not key in the short term because they're going to try and fight on."

"Firing off missiles does not require a supreme leader." 

Alex Vatanka, Iran analyst, Middle East Institute

Plumes of smoke from two simultaneous strikes rise over Tehran on Monday. (Mohsen Ganji/The Associated Press)

 

The first step in a process of succession in the aftermath of confirmation  of the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei resulting from an Israeli aerial attack on his compound containing the Ayatollah's offices, was announced. That a commission of three experts as called for in Iran's constitution, would meet to select the next supreme leader. Unfortunately, while the experts and others around them were in close consultation the building they were in was bombed to smithereens.

 

Evidently, before that happened, the decision was promulgated. Although Ayatollah Khamenei was said to have spurned the idea of  succession, even though rumour had it that he was grooming his oldest son to succeed him, the panel of experts had decided on elevating that son to the now-empty position of Grand Ayatollah. That, despite that the son did not have the required scholarship credentials to obtain that role. 

 

Iran International reports the Assembly of Experts has elected Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as his father’s successor.

 

According to President Pezeshkian, an interim leadership council was struck to begin the process of overseeing the country locked in war with the  attack of its government institutions by the combined military forces of the United States and Israel. Moreover, it was latterly reported that the building housing the deliberating council was bombed: "Following the decapitation of 88 Members of the Islamic Supreme Council, which was set to choose the Ayatollah regime's next "Supreme Leader"; Mossad announced: "It doesn't matter who is chosen today; his fate has been decreed. Only the Iranian nation will choose their future leader."

 

Following the U.S.-Israeli attack that began on Saturday, Iran retaliated by firing waves of missiles and drones at Israel and targeted U.S. allies in the region. Here, boys watch as a tall smoke plume billows following an explosion in the Fujairah industrial zone in the U.A.E. (Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images)

 

With the elimination of many contenders and in the current regime instability various rivals and factions are certain to emerge, each claiming their right to assume wartime power in the face of questionable support from the country'[s military establishment. The solution to which may be a decision to retain the temporary council, but then the fact is the temporary council is now rather unavailable, given that blast that destroyed the building they were meeting in. 

 

Even though Mojtaba Khamenei was widely expected to be favoured as his father's successor, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei resisted the transfer of the supreme position along hereditary lines. Such a move would smack too greatly of the ruling system of the Pahlavi dynasty, when the Shah was replaced by the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. 

 

In Iran the supreme leader is a high-placed religious figure considered to be a representative of God, while also being the head of state. During the 37 years that Ali Khamenei served, he expanded his power and the scope of his rule over the civilian government which itself was elected under a quasi-democratic rule. As such the Grand Ayatollah had the power to wield final decision-making on all manner of regime initiatives, even as he also consulted.

 

What the Iranian Shiite regime -- or what is left of it -- has failed to take into account is its future presence in the Middle East where it has succeeded through its violently hostile actions toward its Sunni Arab neighbours by sending endless streams of missiles and deadly drones into their territory, attacking both oil extraction sites and civilian infrastructure and in so doing inciting deadly enmity from those same neighbours, is the future consequences. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others will never now countenance a continuation of the Islamic Republic. 

 

The U.S. and Israel launched a new wave of attacks on Iran on Tuesday, as the conflict entered its fourth day. Here, plumes of smoke rise following reported explosions in Tehran early Tuesday. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)