Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Sunday, the 1st of March.
Chapter 2: What led to the death of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?
Iran has confirmed the death of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The 86-year-old cleric was killed during a barrage of US-Israeli strikes. President Trump called him one of the most evil people in history, as some people celebrated in Iran. But who is in charge now?
Also in the podcast, we hear about Iranian retaliation hitting targets across the Middle East and threatening to close a key oil transit route. And we get an update from the UN Security Council. For nearly four decades, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has wielded absolute power in Iran, but no longer.
Chapter 3: How are Iranians reacting to the news of Khamenei's death?
As dawn broke in Tehran, Iranian state media confirmed he was dead, killed at his office in the early hours of Saturday. It followed a day of heavy airstrikes across Iran by the US and Israel, codenamed Epic Fury. President Trump earlier broke the news of the death of the 86-year-old cleric, calling him one of the most evil people in history, but Iran denied it.
Nevertheless, as rumours spread of his demise, there were celebrations in a number of Iranian cities. Young people, including women without headscarves, danced and waved flags in a residential area near the city of Karaj. In the west of the capital, Tehran, people were filmed cheering and whistling from their windows and balconies as celebrations echoed between tall apartment blocks.
Well, Iran has now announced 40 days of mourning, while the Revolutionary Guard Corps promised severe decisive punishment for the murderers of Ayatollah Khamenei, as it put it. But what does his death mean for the people of Iran?
Chapter 4: What implications does Khamenei's death have for Iran's government?
Here's Kashayar Junaidi of the BBC Persian service.
For 36 years, his will was what was implemented. No matter elections, parliamentary elections, a president, all of them were second to him. So he was the most important person in the country. And he had a, according to the constitution of the Islamic Republic, he had a high religious as well as high political standing. And nobody was above him. He was above the law. And many people,
were not happy with the way the country moved forward during his reign. And the result of that dismay and that resentment was the uprisings, was the protests in January, which were heavily crushed.
Chapter 5: Who is likely to succeed Khamenei as Iran's Supreme Leader?
So Khamenei's last chapter of his reign will be remembered as a bloody chapter in which thousands of people were killed on the streets of Tehran and other cities across the country, people who were not happy with their economic situation. And now the chants you are hearing now, these are the people which will remember Khamenei
Not by what happened during these 36 years, but by the crackdown on the protesters. Who is in charge of the country at the moment? We still don't know. Look, considering the standards of the Islamic Republic, the announcement of Khamenei's death was faster than usual. 36 years ago, when his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini died, they waited till 7 in the morning to announce his death.
Khamenei's death has been announced 5 in the morning. That shows that they have some confidence about the succession structure.
Chapter 6: What are the Revolutionary Guard's plans following Khamenei's death?
The designation has probably been made, but in secret. Let's keep in mind, the question is not only who is going to succeed Khamenei, It is how fast the military, the IRGC, will be able to announce its new command structure.
We know that during these attacks in the past less than 24 hours, many senior commanders of the IRGC and the military forces of Iran have been killed and they need to be replaced in order for a smooth transition We have to see whether they manage to sustain their attacks on Israel and U.S. bases across the Persian Gulf region.
And maybe they are reluctant to announce that early because they remember the experience from Hassan Nasrallah's death in an Israeli bombing. So when the Lebanese Hezbollah announced Nasrallah's replacement, He was also killed in a successive Israeli strike. So they have to be very careful.
Chapter 7: How have the US and Israel justified their strikes against Iran?
They know that. But at the same time, let's not forget the regime is on shaky grounds. It's been weakened by U.S. and Israeli attacks. But more importantly, it has been weakened by the mass protests across the country in January. And again, last week, all major university campuses in Iran witnessed mass protests against the regime.
I remember seeing pictures of students hanging effigies of Khamenei in the university campuses, which was never heard of. So the regime is on the shaky ground and the people have their chance of probably taking over if the conditions are right for them.
Kashia Junaidi of the BBC Persian service. Well, the Ayatollah was only Iran's second leader since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Chapter 8: What are the potential global consequences of Iran's retaliatory actions?
Caroline Hawley looks back at his life.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had the final say on all important matters of state in Iran. He served as president of the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's theocratic state. When he died in 1989, Ali Khamenei took over as supreme leader.
He'd suggested when his name was first proposed for the role that he wasn't worthy of it.
He'd grown up in the holy city of Mashhad and became a cleric at a young age, though not one of huge consequence. And historian Ali Ansari says that at first he wasn't a hardliner.
When he was president, he was probably on the more progressive side of politics in Iran. The interesting thing about him is how, in a sense, his position radicalised him. His position corrupted him. People telling him that he's God's gift to the world and this sort of thing. I mean, eventually it gets to you. You start to believe it.
As supreme leader, he'd had to build his power base by aligning himself with Iran's hardline military force, the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guards. The regime's repression alienated more and more Iranians. Elected presidents who'd promised political reform were repeatedly thwarted by the supreme leader, and protests against the regime, when they broke out, were brutally crushed.
In 2009 came the first major challenge to his rule. There were mass demonstrations in response to a presidential election that many Iranians felt was stolen by the system in favour of a conservative candidate. The regime responded with deadly force. Then in 2022 came an uprising led by women, chanting woman, life, freedom.
It began after the death and custody of a young woman, Mahsa Amin, who'd been arrested and accused of not wearing her hijab properly. But protesters of all ages were demanding change, challenging as never before the very legitimacy of clerical rule.
They chanted, death to the dictator, a reference to Ali Khamenei, as they did again during an uprising in January that was put down with unprecedented force, only engendering more hatred of him. He was committed to the end to preserving the central tenets of the Islamic Republic. He blamed the unrest, as he always did, on outsiders, Iran's enemies, Israel and the US.
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