{"id":1397,"date":"2026-07-03T09:38:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topmovingpross.com\/?p=1397"},"modified":"2026-07-03T09:38:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:38:23","slug":"ayatollah-ali-khamenei-who-led-iran-with-iron-fist-while-confronting-the-us-will-be-buried","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topmovingpross.com\/?p=1397","title":{"rendered":"Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who led Iran with iron fist while confronting the US, will be buried"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/span> dramatically remolded Iran during more than three decades as supreme leader, turning it into a regional powerhouse and bringing it increasingly into confrontation with Israel and the United States. <\/p>\n

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His dayslong funeral begins Saturday, months after being killed at the start of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Khamenei took the reins after the death in 1989 of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini<\/span>, the fiery ideologue who led the overthrow of the shah and installed rule by Shiite Muslim clerics. It fell to Khamenei, a stodgier figure with weaker religious credentials, to turn that revolutionary vision into a state establishment.<\/p>\n

He supported myriad armed groups in the Middle East, pushed ahead with Iran\u2019s nuclear program, and faced down several protest movements with crackdowns. While his clashes with the U.S. and Israel were a source of support at home, they ultimately led to his demise<\/span>.<\/p>\n

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He built up Iran\u2019s military might, including through proxies<\/h2>\n

After the 1980s war with Iraq<\/span>, Khamenei turned the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard<\/span> into the most important body underpinning his rule. The Guard became a military and business behemoth, the country\u2019s most elite force, with hands across Iran\u2019s economic sectors.<\/p>\n

Under Khamenei\u2019s reign, Iran also shifted fully from conventional warfare to support for proxies, building the \u201cAxis of Resistance.\u201d <\/p>\n

That included backing the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah<\/span>, which drove Israel from southern Lebanon in 2000 and has battled Israeli forces repeatedly since.<\/p>\n

Iran has also supported Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels<\/span>, who in 2014 seized the country\u2019s capital and held on for over a decade in a stalemated war, and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has fought Israel in the Gaza Strip. Iranian-backed militias also waged an insurgency against U.S. forces in Iraq.<\/p>\n

The Mideast wars sparked by Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel<\/span>, however, set in motion the collapse of that \u201cAxis of Resistance,\u201d and left Hamas and Hezbollah weaker. <\/p>\n

Khamenei insisted on Iran\u2019s right to a nuclear program<\/h2>\n

For decades, Khamenei shrugged off U.N. sanctions and pushed ahead with Iran\u2019s nuclear program<\/span>, which the U.S. and its allies say hid a secret project to build a nuclear weapon up until 2003. <\/p>\n

Khamenei issued a verbal fatwa, or religious ruling, that nuclear weapons are un-Islamic, but vowed the country would never give up its right to develop what he called a peaceful nuclear energy program.<\/p>\n

Read more Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kee, seized by Chinese authorities in 2015, dies in Taiwan at 70<\/a><\/p>\n

Under a 2015 nuclear deal<\/span>, Iran agreed to drastically reduce its stockpile and enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. But since U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the accord in 2018, a move welcomed by Israel, Iran has accumulated a stockpile of uranium enriched to nearly weapons-grade levels. Israel and some U.S. officials have expressed concern that Tehran could us that to pursue nuclear arms if it chose.<\/p>\n

Both the U.S.-Israeli bombing in 2025 and the current war have targeted Iran\u2019s nuclear program. <\/p>\n

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His rule was marked by several mass protests \u2014 and crackdowns<\/h2>\n

Political repression and Iran\u2019s faltering economy<\/span> have fueled successively bigger waves of protests. <\/p>\n

In 2009, protests broke out<\/span> when the reformist opposition claimed the reelection victory of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad<\/span> was rigged. Dozens were killed<\/span> and hundreds arrested in a crackdown.<\/p>\n

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Economic protests broke out in 2017 and demonstrations escalated in 2019 over a rise in government-set gasoline prices. A crackdown killed over 300 people, according to activists. <\/p>\n

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