Iran has declared 40 days’ mourning for its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday and appointed a temporary leadership council.
The 86-year-old, who had held power since 1989, was killed in a U.S. or Israeli bombing raid on Saturday.
The leadership council includes Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, judicial chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei and a member of the Guardian Council. An 88-member Assembly of Experts, all Shi’ite clerics, will be responsible for electing a new supreme leader.
Khamenei was only the second supreme leader since Iran’s 1979 revolution, following the death of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, also aged 86, in 1989. Ayatollah is a Shi’ite religious title unconnected to the office of supreme leader; Khamenei was neither the only nor the most senior ayatollah living.
In Iran’s theocratic system, the supreme leader commands the armed forces and the Revolutionary Guard, and is a more powerful position than that of the president, who is elected by universal suffrage but from a list approved by the Guardian Council.
