Iran to elect new ayatollah within 24 hours

According to council member Hossein Mozaffari, a meeting of Iran's Assembly of Experts - the body tasked with electing the country's next supreme leader - will be held within the next 24 hours, according to Iran's Fars news agency.

''The people's representatives on the Assembly of Experts, like you, are eagerly awaiting the creation of conditions to hold a meeting and discuss the selection of a new leader and successor to the martyred Imam [Ali Khamenei]. We strongly hope that if God wills, it will happen within the next 24 hours'', the news agency quoted him as saying.

The elected body of 88 senior clerics is likely to hold remote meetings to elect Iran's new supreme leader after Israel hit the building where the assembly is being held this week.

State media reported days ago that US-Israeli strikes had hit the Assembly of Experts compound in Tehran on Monday, and on Tuesday Israeli military spokeswoman Effie Defrin confirmed a strike on the compound in the city of Qom.

The assembly was not in session at the time of the strike, according to Fars.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has no officially declared successor. After Khamenei's assassination, his powers were temporarily transferred to a three-member council consisting of the president, the head of the judiciary and a senior cleric from the Guardian Council until a new supreme leader is elected.