Mojtaba Khamenei has emerged as the name over Iran's leadership succession after a senior Iranian official told state media that the Assembly of Experts had elected a new supreme leader without publicly naming the winner as strikes continued across Iran, Lebanon and the Gulf on Sunday.
The news came after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was reported killed in an Israeli strike last Saturday, pushing the war between Iran, the US and Israel into its ninth day and opening a vacuum at the top of the Islamic Republic as the region slid further into open conflict. President Donald Trump had already said he wanted to personally select Iran's next leader if American strikes destroyed the regime, while the Israeli military warned in a Farsi post on X that it would pursue anyone involved in appointing a successor.
