March 1 (Reuters) - Veteran Iranian politician Ali Larijani, who said on Sunday a temporary leadership council would be set ⁠up after ⁠an air strike killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reemerged last ⁠year as one of the most powerful figures in the security hierarchy.

Ayatollah Khamenei led Iran for nearly four decades before he was killed in joint US-Israel strikes on Saturday.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in joint strikes on Iran, an Israeli source confirmed to USA TODAY.

Khamenei assumed power following the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, inheriting a revolutionary state still consolidating itself.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. and Israel launched a major attack on Iran on Saturday, and President Donald Trump urged the Iranian public to “seize control of your destiny” by rising up against the Islamic leadership that has ruled the nation since 1979.

Donald Trump says supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed in joint US-Israeli operation

And in that sense every war is an accident.” The U.S.-Iran war—or, to be accurate, its latest and most dramatic iteration—grew from a high-stakes exchange of miscalculations between two men. Donald Trump and Ali Khamenei have little in common except for a vainglorious hubris that has distorted their strategic choices.

Uncertainty surrounds Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following an Israeli-U.S. strike on Tehran that left his fortified compound heavily damaged.