Iran Selects New Supreme Leader as Middle East War Enters Second Week

Reuters

A dog walks past a destroyed car, after a reported strike on Shahran fuel tanks, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, 8 March 2026.

A senior Iranian cleric involved in the vote to choose a new supreme leader indicated on Sunday that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's son Mojtaba would be his successor as Iran signaled defiance and as the U.S. military death toll rose to seven.

The comment by Ayatollah Hosseinali Eshkevari, a member of the Assembly of Experts, follows growing expectations that Mojtaba Khamenei, a hardline cleric like his father, would be named supreme leader, a position ‌giving him the final say in all matters of state in the Islamic Republic.

Mojtaba's father, Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, was killed in one of the first strikes launched against Iran more than a week ago.

"The name of Khamenei will continue," Eshkevari, one of the 88 members of the assembly, said in a video published in Iranian media, as Israel expanded strikes on Iran to include fuel depots and Bahrain blamed Iran for a strike on a desalination plant.

"The vote has been cast and will be announced soon." Eshkevari said, without providing further details.

The U.S. military on Sunday reported a seventh American has died from wounds sustained during Iran's initial counter-attack a week ago, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump presided over the return to the United ⁠States of the remains of the six others who died.

As President Trump pressed for an "unconditional surrender," Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran's parliament's speaker, said Tehran was not seeking a ceasefire to the war and would punish aggressors.

Israel continued to target senior Iranian figures, including Abolqasem Babaian, the recently appointed head of the military office of the supreme leader, saying he was killed in a Saturday strike.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain reported Iranian ‌drone attacks on ⁠Saturday and early Sunday, including a huge fire that engulfed a government office block in Kuwait.

Kuwait's interior ministry said two officers were killed, while the UAE said four migrant workers had died in Iranian attacks there so far.

The UAE said air defence teams had knocked out 16 ballistic missiles and 113 drones fired towards the Gulf state on Sunday. One missile fell in the sea and four drones hit the country's territories.

Bahrain said on Sunday that an Iranian drone attack had caused "material damage" to a desalination plant, though water supplies were not disrupted. It was the first time an Arab country has said Iran targeted a desalination facility during the conflict.

On Saturday, Iran accused the United States of striking a desalination plant on Qeshm Island, disrupting water supplies to 30 villages and calling it "a dangerous move with grave consequences."

In Saudi Arabia, two people were killed and 12 injured after a projectile hit a residential area in Al-Kharj city, the Civil Defence agency said.

Lebanon has also been pulled into the conflict after the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israel last week, with nearly 400 people killed by Israel over the past week, the health ministry said.

Israel killed at least four people when it struck a hotel in central Beirut on Sunday, saying it had targeted Iranian commanders operating in the city — the first such strike on the heart of the Lebanese capital — amid heavy bombardment of the southern suburbs and the country's south and east.

Source: Reuters



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