What we know as markets brace for turmoil

The U.S. and Israel launched their most aggressive attack ever on Iranian targets over the weekend that killed the Islamic state’s longtime supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, thrusting the region into a widening conflict as Tehran retaliates with air strikes across the Middle East.

Here’s what we know so far as investors brace for impacts when markets open after the weekend.

Iran’s state media announced Khamenei’s death early Sunday.

Trump, making the biggest foreign-policy gamble of his presidency ahead of the mid-term election in November, called the killing “the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.”

Trump also warned on Truth Social that the “heavy and pinpoint bombing will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGH THE MIDDLE EAST AND INDEED, THE WORLD!”

The president had stated on Saturday that the aggressive strikes were aimed at ending a decades-long threat from Iran and ensuring it could not develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran retaliated with an unprecedented wave of strikes across the Middle East, targeting several nearby countries that host U.S. military bases, as well as Israel.

In Israel, sirens and mobile-phone warnings sent people rushing to air raid shelters as Iran launched a series of missile barrages that were mostly intercepted.

Blasts were reported in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, with footage showing people fleeing a smoke-filled passageway at Dubai International Airport.

Drone strikes have caused damage and injuries at Dubai International Airport and Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi.

It comes after the Iranian foreign ministry, in a statement Saturday, said the country “will not hesitate” in its response to the U.S.-led strikes. Separately, a spokesperson for Iranian armed forces reportedly warned that “we will teach Israel and the U.S. a lesson that they have never experienced in their history.”

In a Truth Social post Sunday, meanwhile, Trump warned Tehran against further retaliatory moves, threatening to “HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE” if Iran continued to strike.