Ayatollah ⁠Mohsen Heidari Alekasir hints at who the new Iranian Supreme Leader is: “Even the ‌Great Satan has mentioned his name”

It’s been a little over a week since the U.S. and Israel began a massive bombing campaign on Iran which killed the nation’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and around 40 other high-ranking leaders. The Islamic Republic’s body charged with selecting a new leader, the Assembly of Experts, says that the 88 members have reached a consensus.

While the exact name of the person who will be the new supreme leader wasn’t made public in the announcement from Tehran, Ayatollah ⁠Mohsen Heidari Alekasir, a member of the Assembly of Experts, said in a video released by Nournews: “Even the ‌Great Satan [the US] has mentioned his name,” reports Al Jazeera.

Iran has a successor for Khamenei

It is believed that the new Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic is Khamenei’s 56-year-old son, Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei. He was reportedly wounded in the initial air strikes by the U.S. and Israel on 28 February but survived and is now in hiding.

While the group of scholars was supposed to follow a formality of meeting in person at the council’s building in Qom, that was not possible after Israel leveled it in an attempt to disrupt the process. This led to minor squabble among the assembly’s members according to reports in Iranian media causing the delay in selecting the new supreme leader.

However, Ayatollah Mohammad-Mahdi Mirbagheri, another member of the Assembly of Experts, said in a video posted by the Fars news agency that the body has now reached “a decisive and unanimous opinion.”

Heidari Alekasir said that the council followed Khamenei’s advice that the new supreme leader should “be hated by the enemy.” This perhaps helped the members overcome any doubts about having a father-to-son succession and any perception that this would make the leadership role a sort of monarchy, exactly what the 1979 Islamic Revolution meant to overthrow.

Mojtaba Khamenei has strong support from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps which plays a major role in Iranian politics. He is considered a hardliner who also reportedly had a major influence behind the scenes advising his father.

President Donald Trump has said that he has to have a voice in who the next supreme leader of Iran is and previously stated that Mojtaba Khamenei is an “unacceptable” choice, who he considers a “light-weight.”

Israel tells Iran: “This is a warning!”

Whoever, the new supreme leader is, they will be a target of Israeli strikes. The Israeli military has warned that it will pursue every person that is put into the role of supreme leader as well as not hesitating to target “all those who intend to participate in the successor selection.”

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