He is the son of assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
President Donald Trump announced "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28, with massive joint U.S.-Israel strikes attack targeting military and government sites, officials said.
Iranian state television confirmed that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among those killed by airstrikes in Tehran on the first day of strikes. His successor is yet to be named.
Iran is responding to the operation with missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases and multiple Gulf nations. Israel is also intensifying its long-running strike campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
(Read previous Iran live updates here.)
Watch special coverage on Nightline, "War with Iran," each night on ABC and streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
The Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday morning that it had "begun a large-scale wave of strikes" on Tehran.
-ABC News' Morgan Winsor
The Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday it had launched fresh strikes on the Lebanese capital Beirut, targeting what it alleged were Hezbollah command centers.
-ABC News' Morgan Winsor
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the U.S. sinking of the IRIS Dena frigate off the coast of Sri Lanka on Wednesday.
In a post to X on Thursday, Araghchi described the submarine attack as "an atrocity at sea, 2,000 miles away from Iran's shores."
"Frigate Dena, a guest of India's Navy carrying almost 130 sailors, was struck in international waters without warning," the foreign minister said. "Mark my words: The U.S. will come to bitterly regret precedent it has set."
U.S. Central Command -- CENTCOM -- posted a video to X early on Thursday showing its ongoing "effort to eliminate the Iranian regime's mobile missile launch capabilities continues."
"We are finding and destroying these threats with lethal precision," CENTCOM said.
-ABC News' Alex Ederson
