The joint US and Israeli operation against Iran enters its fifth day, with no expectation of the situation improving. A member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for choosing a new supreme leader, said in a statement on state television this Wednesday (4) that the country is “very close” to defining a successor for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who died on the first day of the war.
Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami declared on national television that “the supreme leader will be identified at the next opportunity, we are close to a conclusion, but the situation in the country is one of war.” Some Iranian agencies reported that the announcement could be made as early as next week.
Israel promptly responded to the statement, saying that any name that was released would be considered a target to be eliminated.
“Any leader elected by the Iranian terrorist regime to continue leading the plan to destroy Israel, threatening the US, the free world and countries in the region, and repressing the Iranian people, will be a target for assassination, no matter his name or where he hides,” said Defense Minister Israel Katz in a publication on X this Wednesday.
One of the names being considered to succeed Khamenei is his own son, Mojtaba Khamenei, after reports from Iranian agencies the previous day that he was alive.
Two regime sources informed the agency Reuters that he was not in Tehran during the attack that destroyed the leader’s compound and also killed Khamenei’s wife, another son and several senior figures.
Iran suspends public farewell ceremony for Khamenei
Iran suspended this Wednesday the public farewell ceremony for the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, which had been announced for this evening in Tehran, and said that the day and time of the funeral ceremonies will be announced soon.
The state television broadcaster stated that the ceremony, announced this morning, had not yet been fully defined. Khamenei was killed on Saturday in coordinated attacks by Israeli and American forces in the heart of Tehran.
With the death of the country’s highest authority, a leadership council temporarily took over the regime. It is made up of the President of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, the head of the Iranian Judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, and a jurist from the Council of Guardians, who on this occasion is Ayatollah Alireza Arafi.
