US President Donald Trump warned on Sunday that Iran’s next supreme leader would seek to stay in power without his support, as Tehran prepared to announce a successor to the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts held a private meeting and selected the country’s next leader, according to members of the body, nine days after US and Israeli strikes on Khamenei killed him and plunged the Middle East into conflict.
Clerics did not reveal the chosen individual, saying only that the name would be announced soon. Some insiders said Khamenei’s 56-year-old son, Mojtaba Khamenei, could be the one to succeed his father.
What did Trump say?
Trump has previously demanded a say in the appointment, dismissing the younger Khamenei as an unacceptable “lightweight.”
“He’s going to have to get approval from us,” Trump told ABC News on Sunday, referring to Iran’s next leader. “If he doesn’t get approval from us, he won’t last long.”
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But Tehran’s top diplomat said earlier in the day that the decision was up to Iran alone, adding that it “will not allow anyone to interfere in our internal affairs.”
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi further demanded that Trump “apologize to the people of the region” for the spiraling war.
The younger Khamenei is considered a conservative figure, particularly because of his ties to the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the Islamic Republic’s military.
The Israeli military warned any successor that “we will not hesitate to attack you”. Israel’s reach was underlined by two new operations overnight – strikes against fuel dumps in and around Tehran and an attack on a hotel in the heart of the Lebanese capital Beirut that targeted suspected Iranian commanders.
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Warplanes hit five oil facilities around the Iranian capital, killing at least four people, according to the country’s oil manager, and shrouding the city in acrid smoke.
Tehran’s governor told the IRNA news agency that fuel distribution had been “temporarily interrupted” in the capital.
A dark haze hung over the city of 10 million people, blocking out the sun, while the smell of burning fuel hung in the air. Authorities warned that the fumes could be toxic and urged citizens to stay indoors, but many windows were blown out by the force of the blasts.
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“The fire has been burning for more than 12 hours, the air has become unbreathable. I can’t even go out for my daily shopping,” said a 35-year-old man from Tehran.
“At first I supported this war. After Khamenei’s death, I celebrated with my friends: we drank wine and danced. But since yesterday… people say that there is no gas left at the gas stations,” she said in a text message to Europe.
As the conflict entered its ninth day, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had enough resources to sustain its drone and missile operations in the Middle East for six months.
Several explosions were reported over Israel’s commercial center of Tel Aviv after the Israeli military detected a barrage of rockets fired from Iran. The Magen David Adom rescue service reported that six people were injured in central Israel.
Meanwhile, Trump again refused to rule out the possibility of deploying US ground forces in Iran, claiming the conflict was almost won despite continued Iranian missile and drone attacks.
