India, March 1 -- Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died, Iranian state media reported early Sunday, marking a historic and potentially destabilising moment for the Islamic Republic.

Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news agency confirmed the 86-year-old leader's death hours after US President Donald Trump said that Khamenei had been killed in a joint American-Israeli military operation targeting key sites in Iran.

In a statement on late Saturday, Trump stated that Khamenei was killed during coordinated US-Israeli strikes aimed at dismantling Iran's military and nuclear infrastructure. He did not provide operational details but described the action as part of a broader campaign to eliminate what he called an...