A new leader for Iran, new targets for attacks

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iran’s late supreme leader, has been named his successor, Iranian state TV announced Sunday, as the nine-day war that began with his father’s killing took a dramatic turn.

The younger Khamenei had long been considered a contender for the post, even before an Israeli strike killed his father.

Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard answers to the supreme leader, and now Khamenei will have the central say in war strategy.

A secretive figure, the younger Khamenei has not been seen publicly for days. He now stands at the heart of Iran’s theocracy and will have final say over all matters of state. He will serve as commander-in-chief of the military and Revolutionary Guard, and gains a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that could be used to build a nuclear weapon, if he chooses.

He also faces the likelihood of U.S. criticism. “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me,” U.S. President Donald Trump has said. “We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.”

The Iran war’s targets widened dangerously into civilian infrastructure Sunday as Bahrain accused Iran of striking one of the desalination plants that are crucial for Gulf nations’ drinking water. Oil depots smoldered in Tehran after Israeli strikes, prompting environmental warnings.

In a sign of rising anger in the region, the Arab League chief lashed out at Iran for its “reckless policy” of attacking its neighbors. Gulf countries have already been struck by hundreds of missiles and drones, and Iran’s president vowed to expand attacks on U.S. targets on the ninth day of the war.

Saudi Arabia reported its first deaths, saying a military projectile fell onto a residential area and killed two people of Indian and Bangladeshi nationality. It said 12 other Bangladeshis were wounded. Foreign residents and workers have made up most of the war’s deaths in Gulf nations.

The U.S. military said a service member died of injuries from an Iranian attack on troops in Saudi Arabia on March 1. Seven U.S. soldiers have now been killed in the war.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have vowed to press ahead with the coordinated campaign against Iran, even as Washington’s stated war aims have varied. Trump told ABC News he wants a say in who comes to power in Iran once the war is over, adding that new leader “is not going to last long” without his approval.

In Israel, the military reported the first soldier deaths since the war began, saying two were killed in southern Lebanon while Israel targets the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Three people were injured in Israel in an afternoon strike.

The war, which Israel and the United States launched with airstrikes on Feb. 28 that killed Iran’s supreme leader, has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, at least 397 in Lebanon, and at least 11 in Israel, according to officials.

The conflict has rattled global markets, disrupted air travel, and left Iran’s leadership weakened by several thousand Israeli and U.S. airstrikes.

The Washington Post reported that Iranian officials have chosen the next supreme leader to replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed Feb. 28 in the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, a senior Iranian cleric said Sunday without naming the person.

“The election regarding the leadership has been held and the leader has been determined,” said Ayatollah Ahmad Alam al-Hoda, a senior member of the deciding body — known as the Assembly of Experts — according to Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency. A public announcement is expected.

There had been intense speculation that the assembly would choose one of Khamenei’s sons, Mojtaba Khamenei. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been pushing his candidacy but had encountered resistance from other power brokers. It is unclear how many figures from Khamenei’s inner circle have been killed in the expanding U.S.-Israeli operation.

The announcement came just hours after the Israel Defense Forces warned ahead of the Assembly of Experts meeting that “Israel will continue to follow any successor and anyone who seeks to appoint a successor,” and that it would “not hesitate to target” any of the dozens of members participating in the meeting.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran’s military response would only strengthen.

“The more pressure they impose on us, the stronger our response will naturally be,” Pezeshkian said. “Our Iran, our country, will not bow easily in the face of bullying, oppression, or aggression — and it never has.”

A day earlier, Pezeshkian said Iran regretted regional concerns and urged neighboring states not to take part in U.S. and Israeli attacks. He accused the U.S. of trying to pit countries against one another.

As multiple Gulf states continued to report intercepting incoming missiles and drones from Iran, Iranian hard-liners contradicted his remarks.

“The geography of some countries in the region — both overtly and covertly — is in the hands of the enemy, and those points are used against our country in acts of aggression. Intense attacks on these targets will continue," judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei wrote on X.

Mohseni-Ejei and Pezeshkian are part of the three-member leadership council overseeing Iran since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed.

As Iran awaits the selection of a new supreme leader, Trump and Netanyahu said their war aim remains the replacement of Iran’s leadership altogether.

“We’re not looking to settle,” Trump told reporters Saturday.

The Gulf nations of Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates reported additional Iranian missiles launched toward them Sunday, including several that hit new categories of civilian infrastructure.

The UAE said Iran launched more than 100 missiles and drones. Only four drones fell at unnamed locations, the defense ministry said.

Bahrain accused Iran of indiscriminately attacking civilian targets and damaging one of its desalination plants, though its electricity and water authority said supplies remained online.

Desalination plants supply water to millions of residents in the region and thousands of stranded travelers, raising new fears of catastrophic risks in parched desert nations.

Home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, Bahrain also has seen hotels, ports, and residential towers hit, with at least one person killed.

The desalination plant strike came after Iran said a U.S. airstrike damaged an Iranian desalination plant. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the strike on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz had cut into the water supply to 30 villages.

He warned that in doing so, “the U.S. set this precedent, not Iran.”

In response, CENTCOM spokesperson U.S. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins said that “U.S. forces do not target civilians — period.”

In Iran, authorities said Israel’s overnight strikes on four oil storage tankers and a petroleum transfer terminal killed four people. Witnesses in Tehran said the smoke was so thick from a fire at the north Tehran oil depot that it looked as if the sun had not risen.

Israel’s military said the oil depots were being used by Iran’s military for fuel to launch missiles.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society said about 10,000 civilian structures across the country had been damaged, including homes, schools, and almost three dozen health facilities. It also warned Tehran residents to take precautions against toxic air pollution and the risk of acid rain after Israel’s strikes.

Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, said the war’s impact on the oil industry would continue to spiral, warning it soon could become harder to produce and sell oil. Some regional producers, including in Iraq, have curbed output amid dangers in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran maintains sufficient fuel, Veys Karami, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, told Iran’s state-run news agency.

Israel renewed its assault early Sunday on parts of Lebanon, which said over a half-million people have been displaced in the week of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

The actual number is likely higher. Lebanon’s count of 517,000 refers to those who registered on the government’s online portal. Israel over the past week has called on residents in dozens of villages across southern Lebanon and the entirety of Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate as fighting intensifies.

Health Minister Rakan Nassereddine said 83 children and 82 women have been among those killed.

In Beirut, sheltering families crammed into schools, while others slept in cars or in open areas near the Mediterranean Sea, where some burned firewood to keep warm. The government said it would open a sports stadium to shelter thousands more.

Israel’s renewed offensive began last week after Hezbollah launched rockets toward northern Israel during the war’s opening days.

The subsequent strikes have been the most intense since a November 2024 ceasefire. Israel withdrew from most of southern Lebanon at that time but continued near-daily strikes, primarily in southern Lebanon, saying Hezbollah had been trying to rebuild its positions there.

Hezbollah said last week that after more than a year of abiding by a ceasefire its patience has ended, leaving it with no option but to fight.