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Iran has named Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the country’s slain supreme leader, as his father’s successor, according to a statement from top clerics published on state media. His ascension, announced early Monday morning, signals the government’s desire for continuity as Iran faces expanding attacks from the United States and Israel nine days into the war.

Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, was appointed by a committee of senior Shiite clerics after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in the country for more than three decades, was killed in an airstrike during the opening blow of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. He is known for having close ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and takes the helm not just as Iran’s new religious and political authority but also as the commander in chief of its armed forces.

Iran’s security establishment celebrated Mojtaba Khamenei’s selection.

Iran’s military and hard-line political forces trumpeted the selection of Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the recently killed supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as his father’s successor, celebrating the ascension of one of their own.

The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps endorsed Mr. Khamenei in a statement, praising him as a “new dawn and a new phase for the revolution and the Islamic republic’s rule.” Mr. Khamenei, 56, was seen as their favored candidate. He is believed to have especially close ties with the Revolutionary Guards because he served in their ranks during the last years of the Iran-Iraq war.

Iran’s state television switched from somber coverage of war and religious mourning to upbeat revolutionary anthems after the selection of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader. It amplified voices supporting him, cutting to scenes of large crowds celebrating in public squares in different cities. State media, highly censored and controlled by the country’s hardline faction, did not interview opponents or show chants heard in Tehran against the new leader.

Here’s what happened in the conflict on Sunday.

Iran named Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s slain supreme leader, as his father’s successor, according to a statement from top clerics published on state media early Monday local time. As the U.S.-Israeli war continued, the Pentagon announced that a seventh U.S. service member had died after sustaining injuries last week from an Iranian strike on a Saudi military base where American troops were stationed.

Here’s what else happened on Sunday.

Several Iranians opposed to the government and hoping war would bring an end to the clerical rule said in messages that they feared the younger Khamenei would rule with an iron fist and double down on hostility toward the U.S. and Israel. Alireza, an engineer from Tehran, said he believed the selection was a sign that conditions will get much worse.

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Mojtaba Khamenei, center, the son of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in 2019. Credit…Rouzbeh Fouladi/Middle East Images, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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https://www.nytimes.com

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