Iran set to announce new supreme leader

The clerical body charged with choosing Iran’s next supreme leader will meet on Sunday to name a successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an attack early in the Middle East conflict.

A majority consensus over the successor has more or less been reached, said Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohammadmehdi Mirbaqeri.

Another member of the council, Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir, said in a video that a candidate had been ​selected based on Khamenei’s guidance that Iran’s top leader ​should be “hated by the enemy”.

Two Iranian sources told Reuters ⁠last week that the clear favourite was Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who amassed power under his father as a senior figure in the security forces and the vast business empire they control. Choosing him would send a signal that hardliners were still firmly in charge.

United States President Donald Trump has justified the biggest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion ​of Iraq by saying Tehran posed an imminent threat to the United States, without providing evidence. He has also said Iran was too close to being able to ​build a nuclear weapon.

The U.S. and ⁠Israel have discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium at a later stage of the war.

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Asked about the possibility of sending ground troops to secure nuclear sites on Saturday, Trump said it was something they could do “later on.”

The U.S.-Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and wounded thousands, according to Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani.

Iranian attacks have killed 10 people in Israel. At least ⁠six U.S. service members ​have been killed, with Iran saying on Sunday it had struck U.S. bases in Kuwait.

Lebanon has also been pulled into the conflict after ​the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah fired rockets and drones into Israel last week.

At least four people were killed when Israel hit a hotel building in central Beirut early on Sunday, with Israel saying it had targeted Iranian commanders operating in the Lebanese capital.

It was the first such strike ​in the heart of Beirut, prompting fears Israel would expand its attacks to areas beyond where Hezbollah traditionally operates.

The Star