Checked 30 October 2026
Who is left running the Islamic Republic
Every face at the top of the regime, and what happened to each one. Drag the timeline to watch them fall, tap any face for the whole story, then call who goes next.
The timeline
Drag it, or press Replay. Each face falls on the day it fell.
Who goes next?
- Pick up to 3 still in place
- Lock your call
- Score 100 for each one taken out after that
Your picks stay on this device and in your link. Nothing is sent anywhere.
5 clues from the record, to help you pick
- Successors get hit too, and Israel says so. Four posts lost two holders in a row: IRGC commander (Hossein Salami, 13 June 2025; Mohammad Pakpour, 28 February 2026), chief of the General Staff (Mohammad Bagheri; Abdolrahim Mousavi, same two dates), head of IRGC intelligence (Mohammad Kazemi, June 2025; Majid Khademi, 6 April 2026) and Khatam al-Anbiya HQ (Gholam Ali Rashid, 13 June 2025; Ali Shadmani, four days after taking over). Israel Katz called any successor to Ali Khamenei 'a certain target'. wikipedia.orgwikipedia.org
- Top jobs are refilled within days; second-tier ones can wait months. Ahmad Vahidi took the IRGC the day after Pakpour was killed and Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr took the security council 7 days after Larijani, but the IRGC Navy waited 100 days (Ali Azmaei) and the Basij 146 days (Hossein Taeb) for a named commander. wikipedia.orgwikipedia.org
- Strikes hit meetings. The 28 February strike killed the Defence Council in session (Shamkhani, Pakpour, Mousavi and Nasirzadeh), and the 17 March strike hit a Basij meeting in Tehran, killing its commander Gholamreza Soleimani and his intelligence chief. wikipedia.org
- The killings came in the Israeli-led decapitation phase, not in the US-only rounds. All 32 officials on this board killed by the US or Israel in 2026 died between 28 February and 9 April; the US-only rounds of July and September hit launchers, boats, ports and tankers and killed no senior official on the pages read. wikipedia.orgwikipedia.org
- The posts hit most are nuclear scientists, the armed forces General Staff, the Quds Force, the IRGC Aerospace Force and the Supreme Leader's own office: of the 62 officials on this board killed by Israel or the US since June 2025, 16 were nuclear scientists, 9 General Staff officers, 6 Quds Force, 5 Aerospace Force and 5 in the Leader's office. wikipedia.org
Where the war stands, what the US and Israel have said, and the betting odds
Where the war stands
The war that began on 28 February 2026 is unresolved. Its main phase stopped with the Pakistan-brokered ceasefire of 8 April, and the US declared Operation Epic Fury concluded on 5 May. The Islamabad Memorandum signed on 17 June paused fighting for 60 days but collapsed on 7-8 July: the Islamic Republic hit three ships, and the US struck Iran for 13 straight nights and reinstated its naval blockade. Another round of US strikes ran from 30 August to mid-September. Since then there have been no US or Israeli strikes on Iranian territory on the pages read; the blockade stays, and the IRGC has attacked ships near Hormuz at a record rate (at least 12 in the week to 5 October and 12 more from 11 to 16 October). The Islamic Republic's president calls it 'neither war nor peace'. No senior official has been killed by a US or Israeli strike since 6 April (Kamal Kharazi, who died on 9 April, died of earlier wounds). Talks: Qatar and Pakistan carry messages. The Islamic Republic rejected a Qatari peace plan on 28 October; the same day the Wall Street Journal reported that JD Vance had written, at Trump's direction, to Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei; and Qatari mediators were back in Tehran on 30 October. Threats: Trump promised no attack before the 3 November midterms, but said on 24 October a strike could come 'maybe tomorrow' and told Axios 'we need to finish the job, either through a deal or another way'. Netanyahu, whose bloc came first but short of a majority in Israel's 27 October election, has ordered the IDF and Mossad to work to topple the regime. ABC, the New York Times and Axios (via Gulf News) report joint US-Israeli plans for a short, intense campaign after the midterms; Trump has not decided.
en.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.orgaljazeera.comcbsnews.comNamed as targets
- 24 October 2026 US President Donald Trump: The Islamic Republic; no individual named Sources
- 25 October 2026 US President Donald Trump (Fox News): The regime as a whole; no individual named Sources
- 25 October 2026 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu: The Islamic Republic, over a feared attempt to disrupt Israel's 27 October election Sources
- 28 October 2026 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (election night): The regime as a whole; no individual named Sources
- 29 October 2026 Axios, as reported by Gulf News (planning leak, not an on-record official): The Islamic Republic's leadership, no individual named Sources
- 29 October 2026 US President Donald Trump (to Axios, as quoted by Gulf News): The Islamic Republic; no individual named Sources
What the betting markets say
- Mojtaba Khamenei stops being the de facto leader (Polymarket "Iran leadership change by...?") By Dec 31, 2026: 14.5% yes (Oct 31: 0.3%; Nov 30: 8.5%; June 30, 2027: 31%) Polymarket
- Who is head of state in Iran at the end of 2026? Mojtaba Khamenei 85.4% (No head of state 3.7%, Prince Reza Pahlavi 2.5%, Alireza Arafi 1.5%, Ahmad Vahidi 0.8%) Polymarket
- 5.5%Does the regime fall before 2027? yes Polymarket
- No US air or missile strike hits Iran through...? (Polymarket "US-Iran ceasefire continues through...?") Oct 31: 93.5% yes; Nov 4: 85.5%; Nov 8: 75.5%; Nov 15: 49.5%; Nov 30: 37.5% (so about 62.5% chance of a US strike on Iran by 30 Nov); Dec 31: 26.5% Polymarket
- 88%No US strike on Iran through the US midterms? yes Polymarket
- No Israeli or Iranian air or missile strike on the other through...? (Polymarket "Israel x Iran ceasefire continues through...?") Nov 3: 92.5% yes; Nov 7: 78.5%; Nov 15: 62.5%; Nov 30: 46.5%; Dec 31: 36.5% Polymarket
The Supreme Leader and his house
512The security council
25Armed forces command
1219The IRGC
2746The army (Artesh)
012The government
243The judiciary
311Parliament
012The police
17The clerical councils
024State media
05The nuclear programme
2227Former officials and power brokers
127Nobody here matches.
The empty chairs
The posts that have been refilled again and again. Each new face is the one who sat down after the last one fell.
Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the Leader's representative on it
Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC
Minister of Defence
Commander of the Basij
Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces
Supreme Leader
IRGC spokesman
Commander of the IRGC Navy
Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force
Commander of Khatam al-Anbiya Central HQ
Deputy commander of the Quds Force
Head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization
Started from the chart by @HekasrehCrisis (6 April 2026), checked person by person and brought up to date. See something wrong or someone missing? Tell me in the note box on this page and I fix it.