Israel threatened to target anyone who succeeds or seeks to appoint a successor to Iran’s deceased Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Israeli military issued the warning in a social media post in Farsi on X, as the clerical body in charge of picking the new Iranian leader reportedly reached a decision on Sunday.
“We warn all those who intend to participate in the successor selection meeting that we will not hesitate to target you. This is a warning!” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in the post.
Khamenei was killed in a bombing raid last week after the U.S. and Israel targeted his compound in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Khamenei’s death ended his almost 37-year rule as supreme leader.
Israel justified the attacks as a preemptive strike to protect itself. U.S. President Donald Trump, after days of mixed signals from the White House on the justifications and aims of the war, said on Friday that the ultimate goal is “unconditional surrender” by the Islamic Republic’s leaders.
The continuing attacks haven’t stopped Tehran from seeking a successor to Khamenei. Iran’s Mehr news agency reported on Sunday that Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body tasked with selecting the next leader, had reached a decision, although the name hasn’t been announced yet.
“The vote to appoint the leader has taken place and the leader has been chosen,” 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.
Ayatollah Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, the head of the assembly’s secretariat, will be responsible for announcing the decision. Among the top criteria for the next leader is that they should “be hated by the enemy,” according to a member of the selection panel, Reuters reported.
The assembly’s 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’s international airport and damaged a desalination plant in Bahrain, AFP reported.
Iran’s President Massoud Pezeshkian on Saturday apologized to neighboring countries for launching attacks on their soil where U.S. military bases are located. A few hours later, the Iranian judiciary chief said strikes would continue in Gulf countries that are “at the disposal of the enemy.”
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait have all reported attacks.
In Iran, oil depots were hit by intense U.S.-Israeli aerial bombardment, the BBC reported. The IDF said it struck several fuel storage complexes in Tehran belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Israel’s military also said it targeted commanders of Iran’s elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards with strikes in Lebanon, including on the capital Beirut. The IDF said 27 waves of strikes were carried out in Beirut.
“The commanders of the Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps operated to advance terror attacks against the state of Israel and its civilians, while operating simultaneously for the IRGC in Iran,” the IDF said in a statement on X.
The IDF warned residents in southern Lebanon to evacuate northward, saying in a separate post on X that Israeli strikes were targeting the Hezbollah militant group in the area.
Trump took to Truth Social to claim credit for Pezeshkian’s apology, adding that “Iran will be hit very hard!” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi fired back later Saturday.
“If Mr. Trump seeks escalation, it is precisely what our powerful armed forces have long prepared for, and what he will get,” Araghchi said in a statement posted on X. “Responsibility for any intensification of Iran’s exercise of self-defense will lie squarely with the U.S. Administration,” he added.
Source:
www.politico.eu