After Khamenei’s death, Ayatollah Alireza Arafi was made the interim Supreme Leader of Iran.

Tehran, March 1. Ayatollah Alireza Arafi was appointed as his interim successor on Sunday, hours after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in a US-Israeli airstrike.

Earlier in the day, Iran had confirmed the death of Ayatollah Khamenei in an attack on his home in Tehran. Khamenei had been the country’s supreme leader since the death in 1989 of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution.

Transitional Leadership Council formed

According to IRNA news agency, after the announcement of Ali Khamenei’s death, the government said that a three-member council consisting of President Masoud Pezeshkian, Judiciary Chief Ghulam Hussein Mohseni AJE and a jurist from the Guardian Council will oversee Iran’s leadership during the transitional period.

Under Iran’s constitution, the council assumes leadership responsibility until a successor is appointed by the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member clerical body that has final authority over the country’s political system, military and vital institutions.

Who is Ayatollah Alireza Arafi??

According to media reports, Shia religious leader and Islamic law expert Ayatollah Alireza Arafi was born in 1959 in Mebod, Central Iran. He is also the head of Iran’s Islamic Seminary Management Center and director of the famous Qom Seminary since 2016, and a member of the powerful Guardian Council, a constitutional body that makes laws and oversees elections. Arafi 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.