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Mojtaba Khamenei, the powerful son of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is alive and favoured to emerge as his father’s successor, two Iranian sources told Reuters on Wednesday.
Even as new explosions rang out in Tehran, huge crowds of mourners were expected in the streets later on Wednesday to grieve the elder Khamenei, 86, killed by Israeli forces in the first assassination of a nation’s top ruler by airstrike.
The United States and Israel pressed on with their round-the-clock assaults on Iran on Wednesday in a campaign that the top US commander said was “ahead of the game plan”.
But a fall in global markets turned into a rout in Asia, including a record-breaking crash in Seoul, as investors were unconvinced by US President Donald Trump’s assurances he would quickly reopen the world’s most important shipping corridor and release blockaded Middle East oil and gas.
Related video |Iran confirms death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
The two Iranian sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mojtaba, 56, was not in Tehran during the strike that destroyed the leader’s compound and also killed the elder Khamenei’s wife, another son and a number of senior military and leadership figures.
Iran said the Assembly of Experts that will select the new leader will announce its decision soon, only the second time it has done so since the Islamic Republic’s founding in 1979.
“The Supreme Leader will be identified in the closest opportunity, we are close to a conclusion. However the situation in the country is a war situation,” Assembly member Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami told state TV. He said the candidates had already been identified but did not name them.
Israel said it would hunt down whoever was chosen.
“Every leader appointed by the Iranian terror regime to continue and lead the plan to destroy Israel, to threaten the United States and the free world and the countries of the region, and to suppress the Iranian people — will be an unequivocal target for elimination,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. “It does not matter what his name is or the place where he hides.”
Israel said its forces hit targets across Iran for a fifth day. An Israeli F-35 fighter jet shot down an Iranian Yak-130 over Tehran, believed to be the first time the new generation F-35 has downed a manned aircraft in combat.
www.sabcnews.com, https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/khameneis-son-mojtaba-is-alive-and-favoured-to-succeed-him/
