Скачать или смотреть As conflict widens, Iran names Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father as supreme leader

(AP) — Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran's late supreme leader, has been named as the Islamic Republic's next ruler, authorities announced Monday, as Tehran widened its attacks across the Mideast to strike oil and water facilities crucial to its desert sheikdoms.

With Iran's theocracy under assault by the U.S. and Israel for more than a week, the country's Assembly of Experts chose as the next supreme leader a secretive, 56-year-old cleric who maintains close ties to the country's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The Guard has been firing missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab states since the younger Khamenei's father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed Feb. 28 during the war's opening salvo.

The war has shaken global energy markets, pushing oil prices above $100 a barrel and leading to tighter supplies of natural gas after Qatar turned off its production.

The younger Khamenei, who had not been seen or heard from publicly since the war started, had long been considered a contender for the post. That was even before the Israeli strike killed his father, and despite never being elected or appointed to a government position.

There appeared to be some dissension over his selection. Political figures within Iran criticized the idea of handing over the supreme leader's title based on heredity and thereby creating a clerical version of the rule of the shah, who was toppled during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But top clerics in the Assembly of Experts likely wanted Khamenei to prosecute the war.

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