Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, the wife of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, died days after suffering injuries in the joint U.S.–Israeli airstrikes that killed her husband, Iranian state media reported.
She was 78 years old.
Iranian outlets said she had been in a coma since Saturday when airstrikes struck the Supreme Leader’s office in Tehran during the opening wave of what U.S. officials have called “Operation Epic Fury.”
The strikes killed Khamenei along with dozens of senior Iranian military and political figures.
Her death on Monday adds another dramatic turn in a conflict that has quickly escalated across the region.
Khojasteh was born in Mashhad in 1947 and married Ali Khamenei in the mid-1960s after meeting him in 1964, and the couple had six children—four sons and two daughters.
One son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has long been regarded as an influential figure inside Iran’s power structure.
Despite decades as the spouse of one of the Middle East’s most powerful men, she maintained a notably low public profile and rarely appeared in public or granted interviews.
Khamenei had served as Iran’s Supreme Leader since 1989 and was previously president during the 1980s, and his death marked a historic turning point for the Islamic Republic.
Tehran responded with missile and drone strikes against Israeli targets, U.S. positions in the region, and Gulf states in the days following the attack.
A British airbase in Cyprus was struck by Iranian-made drones, prompting the United Kingdom to review its security measures.
Gulf nations have protested Iranian attacks on their territory and several European governments have urged restraint.
The confrontation has disrupted global energy markets as tensions around the Strait of Hormuz have driven oil prices sharply higher and pushed insurers to withdraw coverage for some Gulf shipping routes.
Inside Iran, the military crisis compounds longstanding pressures from anti-regime protests tied to economic hardship and political repression that predated the escalation.
The deaths of the supreme leader and now his wife deepen uncertainty about Iran’s political future and heighten the risk of further instability with significant implications for regional security and global markets.
