Ayatollah Ali Khamenei served as President of Iran from 1981 to 1989.
Iran launched missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation for the Israeli attack on a diplomatic building in Syria. Now, all eyes are on Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
On April 1, shortly after Israel attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Israel “must be punished and will be punished.”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been the country’s most influential leader since 1989. He is Commander-in-Chief and Head of State, overseeing the Morality Police and the National Police. Ali Khamenei also runs the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is responsible for internal security, and its volunteer branch, the Basij Resistance Army.
Here are some facts about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei:
1. Ali Khamenei was born on July 16, 1939 in Mashhad, Khorasan Province. He was the second child of Islamic scholar Seyyed Javad Khamenei, who taught his family to live a simple life.
2. Ali Khamenei Khamenei continued his studies at Mashhad Theological Seminary after completing his primary education. During these five extraordinary years, he studied all the subjects covered by the “intermediate” curriculum, including logic, philosophy and Islamic law.
3. Ali Khamenei began his advanced religious studies in Qom and grew up under the tutelage of some of the most famous Shiite professors such as Ruhollah Khomeini. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was repeatedly detained and imprisoned for many years, during which time he was allegedly tortured by Savak’s secret police.
4. After his release, he began teaching Islamic philosophy, the traditions of the Prophet, and the interpretation of the Quran in Mashhad and Tehran. Revolutionary Iranian youth appreciated these lessons.
5. Ali Khamenei served as head of the Revolutionary Guards after a brief stint as defense minister. In 1981, he was the victim of an attempted murder attack that left his right arm paralyzed.
6. Driven by the revolutionary elite, Ali Khamenei ran for president in 1981. He served as President of Iran from 1981 to 1989, during which the Iran-Iraq war broke out.
7. Ali Khamenei has served as Iran’s supreme leader since 1989, making him the second-longest-serving dictator in the Middle East after Sultan Qaboos of Oman. Additionally, he was Iran’s second-longest-serving leader in the last century, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
8. As supreme leader, Khamenei exercises constitutional authority over the judiciary, the armed forces, as well as the elite Revolutionary Guards and state-controlled media.
