DUBAI: Two influential and hardline Iranian clerics have called for the swift selection of a new supreme leader to help guide the nation amid a new wave of US and Israeli strikes, Iranian media reported on Saturday. The calls by the clerics suggest that at least some in the clerical establishment are uncomfortable with leaving a three-man council in charge, even temporarily under constitutional rules, after the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. US President Donald Trump has said the US should have a role in choosing the new leader, a demand Iran has rejected.

DUBAI: Two influential and hardline Iranian clerics have called for the swift selection of a new supreme leader to help guide the nation amid a new wave of US and Israeli…

A senior Iranian official told state media that a new leader had been elected after a meeting of the regime’s Assembly of Experts