Iran has announced the appointment of senior cleric Ayatollah Alireza Arafi as Iran’s interim Supreme Leader following the killing of Ali Khamenei in US-Israel strikes.
The state-linked ISNA news agency reported Ayatollah Alireza Arafi has been appointed as the jurist member of the interim leadership council responsible for carrying out the Supreme Leader’s duties during the transition period until a successor is chosen under Iran’s constitutional process.
Under Iran’s constitutional mechanism, the interim council includes President Masoud Pezeshkian, Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i and a cleric from the Guardian Council.
Thefrontrank reports that this body will jointly lead the country after Khamenei’s death as Iran enters a transition phase.
Arafi, born in 1959 into a clerical family from Meybod in Yazd province, hails from a lineage that, according to Iranian accounts, traces its roots to Zoroastrians who converted to Islam in the 19th century.
His father, Ayatollah (Sheikh Haji) Mohammad Ibrahim Arafi, was portrayed in state media as a close associate of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic after the 1979 revolution.
Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader was killed on Saturday in the US-Israel coordinated strike.
Khamenei, 86, ruled since 1989, making him the Middle East’s longest-serving head of state.
His death marks only the second leadership transition since the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by Ruhollah Khomeini, who established the Islamic Republic.
In 1989, Khamenei himself was elevated from the presidency to the supreme leadership after Khomeini’s death.
