Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has reportedly been appointed Iran’s new Supreme Leader.
Mojtaba, 56, Ali Khamenei’s second oldest son, has strong links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and was chosen by Iran’s Assembly of Experts ‘under pressure from the Revolutionary Guards’, according to Iranian opposition outlet Iran International.
Mojtaba, who was sanctioned by the US in 2019, is not a high-ranking cleric and has no official role in the regime.
But he served in the Iranian armed forces during the Iran-Iraq war and is believed to wield considerable influence behind the scenes. He has been touted as a possible successor to his father for years.
However, he was not included in a list of three senior clerics Ali Khamenei reportedly identified last year.
And Father-to son succession is viewed negatively in the Shiite Muslim clerical establishment in Iran.
But much of Iran’s top brass has been decimated in the latest conflict and Mojtaba has close ties with the powerful IRGC and the Basrji volunteer paramilitary force.
Mojtaba, unlike Ali Khamenei’s wife, daughter, grandchild, daughter-in-law and son-in-law, survived the US-Israeli attacks.
The regime’s assembly is tasked with appointing, supervising and potentially dismissing the supreme leader.
It met on Tuesday in Qom to find a successor to Ali Khamenei, who was killed on Saturday by joint US-Israeli strikes.
Israeli and US strikes flattened the building where the assembly met. There was no information on any potential casualties.
Separate air strikes also hit Ferdowsi Square in central Tehran this afternoon with images showing injured people staggering through rubble.
The latest bombing campaign comes after Donald Trump told Iran’s surviving leaders it’s ‘too late’ to talk.
Trump warned the ‘hardest hits’ are yet to come as the fighting entered its fourth day and promised to retaliate after the US embassy in Saudi Arabia was attacked by drones.
The President also claimed the initial wave of strikes wiped out Washington’s preferred successors to Khamenei.
He said the White House had shortlisted several preferred successors – but insisted the military campaign was ‘so successful’ it eliminated not only the primary options but also the ‘second or third’ choices.
‘The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,’ Mr Trump told ABC News.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.
