Five months after declaring him dead, Donald Trump now says he thinks Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei survived that massive joint strike on Tehran - badly wounded, but alive.

In quite the twist, US President Donald Trump has said he believes Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is still alive.

Speaking on Wednesday in an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck, Trump said he doesn't think Khamenei died in that unprecedented attack back in February.

"I don't think he's dead. He was very seriously wounded. The left side of his body, the arm, the leg, the whole thing. He was very seriously wounded. But I don't think he's dead," Trump told Beck.

It's a major shift from what he said at the time.

For context, this all goes back to late February, when Israel and the United States launched what was described as an attack of unprecedented scale against Iran. It was a huge escalation after years of shadow war.

Both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Khamenei killed in the immediate aftermath.

"Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead," Trump wrote on his Truth Social network at the time.

Netanyahu went even further in a televised address that morning, claiming: "This morning, in a powerful surprise strike, the compound of the tyrant Ali Khamenei was destroyed in the heart of Tehran… and there are many signs that this tyrant is no longer alive."

The strikes triggered a furious response from Tehran, which fired off a massive missile barrage that sent people running for cover in cities across Israel and the wider Middle East.

Why this matters — some background:

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, has been Iran's Supreme Leader since 1989, after the death of the Islamic Revolution's founder, Ruhollah Khomeini. He is the ultimate decision-maker in Iran — above the president — with final say over the military, judiciary and foreign policy.

His absence from public view since February has fuelled intense speculation. Iranian state media has not shown a verified live appearance, only old footage and written statements attributed to his office, which is highly unusual for a leader who traditionally appears for key religious holidays and political events.

Historically, Iran has been very secretive about the health of its supreme leaders. When Khomeini was dying in 1989, the news was tightly controlled for days. And Tehran has a long history of keeping senior figures out of sight during crises — as it did with several top IRGC commanders during the 2020 tensions after Qasem Soleimani's killing.

If Trump is right and Khamenei is alive but severely incapacitated, it raises massive questions about who is actually running Iran right now, and what happens next with the succession — a topic Iran's clerical establishment has quietly debated for years, with Khamenei's son Mojtaba often mentioned.

Source: cbinews.tv

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