The new leader of Iran already has a target on his back, Israel has suggested. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened to assassinate any successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after he was killed in joint strikes with the US on Saturday. Since then, his son Mojtaba Khamenei has emerged as Iran’s next leader, Iran International reported.

Katz wrote on X: “Any leader selected by the Iranian terror regime to continue leading the plan for Israel’s destruction, threatening the United States, the free world and countries in the region, and suppressing the Iranian people – will be a certain target for assassination, no matter his name or where he hides.

“It does not matter what his name is or the place where he hides. The Prime Minister and I have instructed the IDF to prepare and act by all means to carry out the mission as an integral part of the objectives of Operation “Lion’s Roar”.

“We will continue to act with full force, together with our American partners, to crush the regime’s capabilities and create the conditions for the Iranian people to overthrow it and replace it.”

Mojtaba, 56, has strong ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which reportedly pressured the Assembly of Experts to select him, the Iranian opposition outlet reported.

Despite this connection to the military branch, he is not a high-ranking cleric and has never held an official role in the regime. He did, however, service in the Iranian armeed forced during the war with Israel.

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He said: “I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don’t want that to happen. It would probably be the worst.

“You go through this and then in five years, you realise you put somebody in who was no better. So we’d like to see somebody in there that’s going to bring it back for the people…

“We have them very much beaten militarily, from the military standpoint. They’re still lobbing some missiles.

“They won’t even be able to do that because we’re hitting all of their carriers. We’re hitting all of their missile stock … and we’re knocking out a lot.