Daijiworld Media Network - Tehran

Tehran, Mar 1: Hours after the death of long-serving supreme leader Ali Khamenei in a US-Israel airstrike, Iran on Sunday named Ayatollah Alireza Arafi as the country’s interim supreme leader. Khamenei had led Iran since 1989, succeeding Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Iranian government announced that a three-member council — comprising President Masoud Pezeshkian, Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, and a jurist from the Guardian Council — will oversee the country during the transitional period, according to the IRNA news agency. Under Iran’s constitution, this council assumes leadership responsibilities until the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member clerical body, selects a permanent successor. The Assembly holds ultimate authority over Iran’s political system, armed forces, and key institutions.

Born in 1959 in Meybod, central Iran, Ayatollah Arafi is a Shia cleric and Islamic jurist with extensive experience in religious and academic leadership. He heads Iran’s Centre for the Management of Islamic Seminaries and has served as Director of the revered Qom Seminary since 2016. A member of the Guardian Council, he also served as President of Al-Mustafa International University from 2008 to 2018 and has been a permanent member of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution since 2011.