India, March 1 -- In a stunning escalation that has pushed the Middle East to the brink of a regional conflagration, the US and Israeli regimes claimed late Friday that joint air and missile strikes on Tehran killed Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during a sweeping assault on military and strategic sites across the Iranian capital.

Reuters reported that Israeli officials claimed there were strong indications the Supreme Leader had been present at one of the targeted compounds. As of early Saturday, there was no independent international verification of his death, and Iranian state media stopped short of acknowledging any such loss. Instead, officials in Tehran described the claims as psychological warfare and vowed a hist...