Tehran, March 1, 2026
Hours after long-time Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in a US-Israeli airstrike, Iran on Sunday named Ayatollah Alireza Arafi as his interim successor.
Ayatollah Khamenei, whose death in an attack on his residential compound in Tehran was announced by Iran, had been the Supreme Leader since 1989 after the passing away of the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989.
After announcing his death, the government said that a three-member council comprising President Masoud Pezeshkian, Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, and a jurist from the Guardian Council would oversee Iran’s leadership during the transitional period, as per the IRNA news agency.
Under Iran’s constitution, the council assumes leadership duties until a successor is appointed by the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member clerical body that holds ultimate authority over the country’s political system, armed forces, and key institutions.
According to RT, Shia cleric and Islamic jurist Ayatollah Arafi was born in 1959 in Meybod in central Iran.
Head of Iran’s Centre for the Management of Islamic Seminaries, and Director of the revered Qom Seminary since 2016, he is also a member of the powerful Guardian Council, a constitutional body that vets legislation and oversees elections.
He has served as President of Al-Mustafa International University from 2008 to 2018 and is a permanent member of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution since 2011.(Agency)
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