Iran could select its new Supreme Leader in the next 24 hours following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. State-run Fars News Agency reported that the next Assembly of Experts session will be held within 24 hours. It wrote on X: “Assembly of Experts member: The session to elect the leader will be held within the next 24 hours.”

Grand Ayatollah Nouri Hamedani reportedly called for the selection process to be sped up to make it smoother and more cohesive, so the regime does not appear weak. Ayatollah Mazafari also reportedly said the Assembly has been “impatiently awaiting” a decision on a new leader, according to the news agency.

They reported him as saying: “The people’s representatives in the Assembly of Experts, like you, are impatiently awaiting the conditions for convening the session and the consultations to select a new Leader and successor to the martyred Imam, so that they may properly fulfil their historic and fateful mission.”

Mojtaba, 56, has strong ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which reportedly pressured the Assembly of Experts to select him, Iran International 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, serve in the Iranian armed forces during the war with Israel.

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This comes after a classified report by the National Intelligence Council found that even a large-scale assault on Iran by the US would be unlikely to destroy the regime.

The findings, confirmed to The Washington Post by three people familiar with its contents, outlined outcomes from either a narrowly tailored campaign against Iran’s leaders or a broader assault against its leadership and government institutions.

It was concluded in both cases that Iran’s establishment would respond to the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei by following protocols designed to preserve continuity of power, the people said.