LAST HOUR The successor of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been elected, the Iranian opposition press announces

Iran's Assembly of Experts has chosen Ali Khamenei's son Mojtaba as the country's next Supreme Leader, sources familiar with the discussions told Iran International, a Persian-language satellite TV channel and multilingual online news agency based in London, on Tuesday.

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The exile publication also writes that the vote in the Assembly of Experts took place under the pressure of the Revolutionary Guard.

Mojtaba is known to follow a hard anti-Western line, just like his father.

So far, the information about the choice of Khamenei's successor has not been officially confirmed by the power in Tehran.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed Saturday morning in the first wave of air strikes by the US and Israel.

Khamenei, 86, became Iran's highest authority in 1989 after the death of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. As supreme leader, he wielded ultimate control over Iran's political, military and religious institutions, shaping domestic politics and guiding foreign relations, according to Reuters.

Ali Khamenei's body will be buried in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)-affiliated Fars news agency previously reported.

Israel and the US airstrike and hit the building near Tehran of the body tasked with electing Iran's new supreme leader on Tuesday, in the fourth day of the war in Iran, local news agencies reported earlier in the day.

An Israeli defense source confirmed to The Times of Israel that the Israeli air force attacked a building in the Iranian city of Qom where senior clerics had gathered to elect Iran's new supreme leader.

The Assembly of Experts has 88 members, but it was unclear how many of them were in the building at the time of Tuesday's attack, the Israeli official said.

Later, the Israeli publication Haaretz wrote that the Assembly of Experts abandoned the physical meeting and met online. Members of the Assembly were expected to appoint Iran's new ayatollah.

The Assembly of Experts is one of the most powerful and influential bodies in Iran's theocratic structure, being composed of 88 Islamist clerics elected by popular vote, but then filtered by the Revolutionary Guards Council.

Their main responsibility is monitoring, appointing and, in theory, dismissing Iran's supreme leader. In the history of the Islamic Republic, this procedure has been used only once, in 1989, when Ali Khamenei was elected to succeed the regime's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini.

A triumvirate ensured the transition after Khamenei's death

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had no officially declared successor. With his death, his powers were temporarily transferred, pending the election of a new supreme leader, to a three-person council, made up of the president, the head of the judiciary and a high-ranking cleric from the Council of Guardians.

On Sunday, Alireza Arafi, a religious dignitary member of the Assembly of Experts and the Council of the Guardians of the Revolution, had been appointed to the triumvirate in charge of ensuring the transition of power.

The Council for Establishing the Best Interest of the Regime announced on the X platform that it had “elected Ayatollah Alireza Arafi as a member of the Interim Governing Council”.

This body, which also includes President Masoud Pezeshkian and Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, was to rule Iran until the Assembly of Experts “elects a permanent leader as soon as possible.”

Trump on the “worst case scenario” for Iran

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that most of the Iranian officials Washington considered to lead Iran after the end of the war have died.

Trump said in a White House meeting with German Chancellor Friederich Merz on Tuesday that the “worst case scenario” for Iran would be if “someone as bad as the previous leadership takes over.”

“That could happen. We don't want that to happen,” the US president said. “We'd like to see someone there to bring the power back to the people, and we'll see what happens.”

Of the candidates the Washington administration considered for leadership, most are dead, Trump said, adding that “soon, we won't know anybody.”

“Most of the people we were thinking of are dead. (…) And now we have another group (of leaders). It's possible they're dead too,” he said.

“It seems to me that someone on the inside would be a better fit,” Trump suggested. “If there is such a person, but we have people like that (consider, no). We have people … more moderate,” added the White House leader.