DUBAI/JERUSALEM ¨C Iran on Monday named Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, signaling that hardliners remain firmly in charge in Tehran a week into its conflict with the United States and Israel.
Mojtaba, a mid-ranking cleric with influence inside Iran¡¯s security forces and vast business networks under his father, had been seen as a front-runner in the lead up to the vote by the assembly, a body of 88 clerics charged with choosing the new leader after Ali Khamenei.
¡°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.
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