After Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli bombings over the weekend, Iran said on Wednesday that it was working quickly to select a new supreme leader.
Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts for Leadership, which is in charge of choosing a new leader, stated, “We are all trying.”
“The leader will be appointed as soon as possible, God willing. He told state TV, “We are close, but the situation is a war situation.”
Any Iranian leader chosen to succeed Khamenei “will be a certain target for assassination,” according to Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz earlier on Wednesday.
Given this threat, Khatami stated that “discretion is necessary” and that the election of a new supreme leader was “imminent.”
The 88 members of the Assembly of Experts are chosen every eight years.
The Assembly’s edifice in the holy city of Qom was the target of US and Israeli strikes on Tuesday, according to Iranian media.
The Tasnim news agency reported that strikes had hit the organization’s main headquarters in Tehran the day before.
Sunday marked the official start of Iran’s leadership transition, one day after Khamenei, the country’s leader since 1989, passed away.
Interim leaders include Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, conservative judiciary director Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, and cleric and Assembly of Experts member Alireza Arafi.
