{"id":328352,"date":"2026-03-08T13:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/328352\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T13:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:45:12","slug":"israel-threatens-to-target-khameneis-successor-as-iran-says-new-leader-chosen-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/328352\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel threatens to target Khamenei\u2019s successor as Iran says new leader chosen \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Khamenei was killed in a bombing raid<\/a> last week after the U.S. and Israel targeted his compound in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Khamenei\u2019s death ended his almost 37-year rule<\/a> as supreme leader.<\/p>\n

Israel justified the attacks as a preemptive strike to protect itself. U.S. President Donald Trump, after\u00a0days of mixed signals<\/a>\u00a0from the White House on the justifications and aims of the war, said on Friday that the\u00a0ultimate goal is \u201cunconditional surrender\u201d<\/a>\u00a0by the Islamic Republic\u2019s leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The continuing attacks haven\u2019t stopped Tehran from seeking a successor to Khamenei. Iran\u2019s Mehr news agency reported on Sunday that Iran\u2019s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body tasked with selecting the next leader, had reached a decision, although the name hasn\u2019t been announced yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vote to appoint the leader has taken place and the leader has been chosen,\u201d Ahmad Alamolhoda, a member of the Assembly of Experts, was quoted as saying by Mehr. He said the secretariat of the body will announce the name later.<\/p>\n

Ayatollah Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, the head of the assembly\u2019s secretariat, will be responsible for \u2060announcing the decision. Among the top criteria for the next leader is that they should \u201cbe hated by the enemy,\u201d according to a member of the selection panel, Reuters reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The assembly\u2019s vote came even as the war in Iran continued to spill into the wider Persian Gulf region, as Tehran targeted U.S. and Israeli military bases across the Middle East with drone and missile attacks. Iran on Sunday also hit fuel tanks at Kuwait\u2019s international airport and damaged a desalination plant in Bahrain, AFP reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khamenei was killed in a bombing raid last week after the U.S. and Israel targeted his compound in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[53906,105611,18292,54,22892,3798,85,87,46,70579,6606,4178,47,2899,11982,43,2935,1823,78,2460,4443,79,1032,2201,159387],"class_list":["post-328352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-airports","tag-ali-khamenei","tag-bahrain","tag-donald-trump","tag-drones","tag-fuels","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-judiciary","tag-kuwait","tag-media","tag-middle-east","tag-military","tag-missiles","tag-news","tag-platforms","tag-qatar","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-social-media","tag-tanks","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-united-states","tag-war","tag-war-in-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}