Panel picking Iran's supreme leader has reached consensus, member says

DUBAI, March 8 (Reuters) - The clerical body that will choose Iran's next supreme leader, succeeding the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has more or less reached a majority consensus, Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohammadmehdi Mirbaqeri said on Sunday.

The Mehr news agency quoted him as saying "some obstacles" still needed to be resolved regarding the process.

On Saturday, a senior cleric in the Assembly of Experts said its members would meet "within one day" to choose the leader.

NEXT SUPREME LEADER MUST 'BE HATED BY THE ENEMY'

Two members of the panel, Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir and Ahmad Alamolhoda, said the assembly had chosen a successor, according to Iranian media.

Alamolhoda said the head of the assembly's secretariat, Ayatollah Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, is responsible for announcing the assembly’s decision.

Iranian media said the group had a minor disagreement over whether they would need to meet in person to issue their final decision, or bypass this formality.

Heidari Alekasir said in a video released by Nournews on Sunday that an in-person meeting was not possible under current conditions, suggesting at remote and written alternatives.

"This is an extraordinary situation, the assembly cannot meet in a plenary," he said, adding that targeting the assembly would only benefit Iran's enemies and "harm the revolution".

Since the war began on February 28, Israeli and U.S. strikes have killed dozens of officials and commanders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with Iranian media reporting on Tuesday that strikes flattened an auxiliary building of the Assembly of Experts in the city of Qom.

Heidari Alekasir said the candidate had been picked based on the late supreme leader's advice that Iran's top leader should "be hated by the enemy" instead of praised by it.

"Even the Great Satan (U.S.) has mentioned his name," the senior cleric said of the chosen successor, days after U.S. President Donald Trump said Khamenei's son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was an "unacceptable" choice for him.

Trump said on Thursday that the younger Khamenei, a mid-ranking hard-line cleric, was the most likely successor, according to Axios, but warned he would reject such an option and that he should be personally involved in selecting Iran's next leader.

Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, was not in Tehran when his father was killed by air strikes early in the war, an Iranian source told Reuters on Wednesday.

He has close ties to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and is one of the most influential figures in the Iranian clerical establishment, thanks to the influence he built behind the scenes and his role as his father's gatekeeper, according to people familiar with the matter.

He has for years been seen as one of the top candidates to succeed the elder Khamenei, despite never holding a government position, aside from working in his father's office.

Ali Khamenei ruled Iran from 1989 as supreme leader after serving as president for nearly eight years.

Mojtaba Khamenei was a particular target for criticism by protesters during unrest over the death of a young ​woman in police custody in 2022, after she ​was arrested for allegedly breaching the Islamic Republic's strict dress codes.

He is seen as having leverage over Iran's security apparatus, which has repressed several waves of protests in recent years.