President Donald Trump said Iran’s next leader would not "last long" without US approval in an interview with ABC News.
Missile strikes and explosions continued to be reported in several Iranian cities on Sunday, including Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, Bandar Abbas, Ahvaz and areas near Yazd.
Iranian clerics said the Assembly of Experts has already chosen a new supreme leader, though disagreements remain over when and how to publicly announce the decision.
President Trump said on Saturday he does not want the Kurds to "go in" and get killed while fighting Iran's regime, when asked about a possible ground operation of Kurdish opposition groups against Iran.
Israel on Saturday night initiated attacks on 30 oil storage tanks throughout Iran, Israeli media reported citing officials, with videos showing massive fires in several facilities in Tehran and other cities.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tehran would continue responding to attacks despite earlier remarks apologizing to regional countries and saying Iran did not intend to strike them.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts announced in a statement on Sunday that Mojtaba Khamenei has been chosen as the country’s new supreme leader, days after Iran International first reported on Tuesday that the Assembly of Experts had selected him under pressure from the Revolutionary Guards.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that Iran was not responsible for last week’s drone incident in Azerbaijan and pledged an investigation, Azerbaijani media reported on Sunday, citing the president’s office.
United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and US President Donald Trump discussed Iranian attacks in a phone call, the Emirati state news agency reported.
Iran’s exiled prince Reza Pahlavi called on Australia to ensure the safety of members of Iran’s women’s national football team, saying they face pressure and threats after refusing to sing the Islamic Republic's national anthem during the Women’s Asian Cup in Australia.
“The members of the Iranian Women’s National Football Team are under significant pressure and ongoing threat from the Islamic Republic,” Pahlavi said in a post on X.
“As a result of their brave act of civil disobedience in refusing to sing the current regime’s national anthem, they face dire consequences should they return to Iran. I call on the Australian government to ensure their safety and give them any and all needed support,” he added.
The US military said the seventh US service member killed in action during operations against Iran had died from injuries sustained in an Iranian attack on US troops in Saudi Arabia.
“Last night, a US service member passed away from injuries received during the Iranian regime’s initial attacks across the Middle East,” the US Central Command said in a statement.
"The service member was seriously wounded at the scene of an attack on US troops in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on March 1. This is the seventh service member killed in action during Operation Epic Fury," the statement added
Iran’s state television on Sunday said the country's new supreme leader will be announced soon.
“The third leader of the Islamic Republic will be announced soon,” the news channel of Iran’s state broadcaster Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), said in a ticker.
Iran International reported on Tuesday, that the Assembly of Experts had selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran’s former supreme leader Ali Khamenei, as the next leader under pressure from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Five days later, the Assembly of Experts has yet to publicly announce the choice.
In recent days, some members of the Assembly of Experts denied that Mojtaba Khamenei had been selected and said a decision on the next leader had not yet been made.
Sources told Iran International that the delay in announcing the new supreme leader was partly due to opposition from some Assembly of Experts members who warned they would openly oppose Mojtaba Khamenei’s selection, saying some internal procedures of the body had not been followed.
French President Emmanuel Macron said he had spoken with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and called on Tehran to halt strikes against other countries in the region and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
In a post on X, he said a diplomatic solution was necessary to end the conflict.
“If the enemy attacks us from any country, Tehran will respond decisively,” Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on state TV.
“If they attack Iran’s infrastructure, we will hit their infrastructure in return without delay,” he added.
Egypt’s foreign minister called for the formation of a joint Arab force to protect Arab states’ sovereignty following Iran’s attacks on neighboring Arab countries, during an emergency Arab League meeting chaired by the United Arab Emirates, the foreign ministry said.
“The Foreign Minister noted the importance of activating the concept of Arab national security to preserve the security of Arab countries and protect their sovereignty,” Egypt’s foreign minister Badr Abdelatty said during a virtual meeting of the Arab League council at the ministerial level on Sunday, according to a foreign ministry statement.
“(He) pointed in this context to the need to activate frameworks for joint Arab cooperation to effectively deal with existing threats, including the formation of a joint Arab force,” the statement added.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts has elected a new leader with an overwhelming majority of votes, a member of the body said.
“With the majority of votes, the person who will continue the path of Imam Khomeini and the path of the martyr Imam Khamenei has been chosen. The name of Khamenei will continue. The vote has been cast and will be announced soon,” Hosseinali Eshkevari, a representative of Gilan province in the Assembly of Experts, said.
The announcement comes days after Iran International reported that the Assembly of Experts had chosen Mojtaba Khamenei as the next supreme leader under pressure from the Revolutionary Guards.
The crew of the Iranian naval vessel IRIS Bushehr, an auxiliary ship accompanying the warship IRIS Dena that was attacked by the United States, fled to Sri Lanka after abandoning the ship, a former Sri Lankan navy official told Iran International.
The vessel, belonging to the Iranian army’s navy, docked at the port of Colombo on March 5 due to what was described as an “engine technical malfunction,” carrying 208 naval personnel, including 53 officers and 84 officer cadets.
The former official said the ship’s request for humanitarian assistance due to engine trouble was in fact a cover for a “mass escape” by the crew.
He said the crew’s decision stemmed from a deep collapse of their trust in the Islamic Republic amid the current war in Iran.
The source added that the sinking of the destroyer Dena by a US submarine further intensified this distrust, saying the incident showed the crew that the Islamic Republic does not care about the lives and fate of its forces.
The source said all 208 sailors had left the ship, were transferred to the Welisara naval base and are now under the supervision of Sri Lankan security authorities.
US President Donald Trump is considering the option of deploying special forces to seize Iran’s near-weapons-grade uranium, Bloomberg News reported on Sunday, citing three diplomatic officials briefed on the matter.
Israel’s military said it killed Abolghasem Babaeian in an air strike in Tehran on Saturday, identifying him as the head of the military office of Iran’s new leader, who it said has not yet been chosen, and chief of staff of the Khatam al-Anbiya command.
“The Israeli Air Force, with precise guidance from military intelligence, targeted and eliminated Abolghasem Babaeian in Tehran yesterday," the Israeli military said on its Persian-language X page.
"Babaeian was responsible for coordinating between regime institutions to advance actions against the State of Israel and activating the regime’s emergency mechanisms," it added.
The military said Babaeian had been appointed head of the emergency command staff after Ali Shadmani, who previously held the role, was killed during the June war.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards warned that Tehran will carry out attacks across the region if strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure continue, state media reported, citing an IRGC official.
Iran’s exiled prince Reza Pahlavi praised Iranian women’s role in opposing the Islamic Republic and called them central to the country’s future in a message marking International Women’s Day.
“This year’s March 8 arrives as Iran passes through the most decisive chapter of its contemporary history,” Pahlavi said in a statement posted on X.
“Iranian women, who before the upheaval of 1979 enjoyed many rights and freedoms under the law, lost a large portion of those rights and liberties with the establishment of the Islamic Republic,” he said. “Yet over the past forty-seven years, they have never laid down the banner of the struggle against discrimination and injustice.”
Pahlavi said Iranian women had stood “at the forefront of resistance” against the authorities and had fought alongside men during the recent nationwide protests.
“In the free, democratic, prosperous, and flourishing Iran of tomorrow, all citizens — regardless of gender — will be equal before the law,” he added. “Iranian women, who have been pioneers in the struggle for freedom, will also play a decisive role in the day after liberation.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump discussed the situation in the Middle East and military cooperation between the UK and US in a phone call on Sunday, Starmer’s office said.
Explosions were heard in the holy city of Qom as well as in Tehran on Sunday, Iranian media reported.
President Donald Trump said Iran’s next leader would not “last long” without the approval of the United States.
“He’s going to have to get approval from us,” Trump told ABC News. “If he doesn’t get approval from us he’s not going to last long. We want to make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it.”
“I don’t want people to have to go back in five years and have to do the same thing again, or worse let them have a nuclear weapon,” he added.
The US military issued a safety warning to civilians in Iran on Sunday, urging them to stay home and saying Iranian forces were conducting military operations from heavily populated areas.
“The Iranian regime is using heavily populated civilian areas to conduct military operations, including launching one-way attack drones and ballistic missiles,” US Central Command said in a statement.
The military said Iranian forces were launching drones and ballistic missiles from crowded areas in cities including Dezful, Esfahan and Shiraz.
"US forces strongly urge civilians in Iran to remain indoors. The Iranian regime, by using densely populated civilian areas to conduct military operations, including the launch of one-way attack drones and ballistic missiles knowingly endangers the lives of innocent people," CENTCOM said in another statement posted on its Persian language X page on Sunday.
The Israeli military said it carried out additional waves of strikes in Tehran on Sunday, targeting facilities linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and security forces.
“We completed additional waves of attacks in Tehran. The Aerospace Headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and 50 ammunition storage shelters were targeted,” the Israeli military said on its Persian-language X page.
“In this framework, the aerospace headquarters of the Iranian regime was targeted. This center was used as the site for receiving, distributing and researching by Iran’s Aerospace Organization,” it added.
The Israeli military said the complex included a control and operations building for the Khayyam satellite, which was launched in August 2022 and was used by Iran's Revolutionary Guards for surveillance activities.
It also said it targeted dozens of other sites including an ammunition storage facility at a law enforcement base, a Basij unit base, law enforcement headquarters and a complex belonging to the ground forces of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
