Iran's Assembly of Experts has announced that Mojtaba Khamenei will succeed his slain father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country's Supreme Leader, Iranian state media reported on Sunday, according to Reuters.
The official announcement came days after a report from Iran International, an anti-Tehran media outlet, first said that the 56-year-old hardliner had been chosen for the all-powerful role.
Mojtaba, a mid-ranking cleric with close ties to the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, had long been viewed by elements of Iran's ruling establishment as a potential successor to his father, who was killed in the joint US-Israeli strikes that triggered the ongoing armed conflict in the Middle East.
His new position gives him the ultimate authority in all matters of state in the Islamic Republic.
Mojtaba's elevation is expected to draw the ire of US President Donald Trump, who said on Sunday that Washington should have a say in the selection.
"If he doesn't get approval from us, he's not going to last long," he told ABC News. Israel, ahead of the announcement, threatened to target whoever was chosen as Iran's new Supreme Leader.
Although Iran's ruling ideology frowns on the principle of hereditary succession, Mojtaba has a powerful following within the Guards and his dead father's still-influential office.
"By a decisive vote, the Assembly of Experts, appointed Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei as the third Leader of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran," the assembly said in a statement issued just after midnight Tehran time.
Hours before the formal announcement, Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir, a member of the council, had said that a candidate had been selected based on Ali Khamenei's guidance that Iran's top leader should be "hated by the enemy".
"Even the Great Satan (US) has mentioned his name," Heidari Alekasir said of the chosen successor. He was referring to Trump's warning that Mojtaba was an "unacceptable" choice for him.
Mojtaba was born in 1969 in Iran's holy Shi'ite city of Mashhad and grew up as his father was contributing to efforts to overthrow the Shah. As a young man, he served in the Iran-Iraq war.
Mojtaba received his religious education under conservatives in the seminaries of Qom, which is Iran's centre of Shia theological learning.
He has never held any official position in the Islamic Republic's government. While he has been spotted at loyalist rallies, he has rarely spoken in public.
According to the US Treasury Department, which imposed sanctions on him in 2019, the cleric represented Ali Khamenei in "an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position" aside from working in his office.
Mojtaba was particularly criticised by protesters during the unrest that swept Iran following the custodial death of a young woman who was accused of breaching the Islamic Republic's strict dress codes.
He was widely believed to have been behind the sudden rise of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was Iran's elected president in 2005.
Source: Reuters