He is the son of assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
President Donald Trump announced "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28, with massive joint U.S.-Israel strikes attack targeting military and government sites, officials said.
Iranian state television confirmed that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among those killed by airstrikes in Tehran on the first day of strikes. His successor is yet to be named.
Iran is responding to the operation with missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases and multiple Gulf nations. Israel is also intensifying its long-running strike campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
(Read previous Iran live updates here.)
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The process of selecting Iran's next supreme leader is entering the final stages, a member of the Assembly of Experts, Ayatollah Mohsen Qomi, told Mehr News, Iran's semiofficial news agency.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said Thursday that a Bahamas-flagged tanker was hit by an explosion in the northern Persian Gulf late on Wednesday.
The explosion occurred while the vessel was empty and at anchor around 30 nautical miles southeast of the Kuwaiti coast, the UKMTO said.
"The Master" of the tanker reported "a large explosion on the port side then seeing a small craft leave the vicinity," the UKMTO said.
Iranian state media on Thursday carried a claim by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' public relations office that IRGC naval forces attacked an oil tanker in the northern Persian Gulf.
-ABC News' Zoe Magee
The United Arab Emirates' Defense Ministry said in a post to X that one Iranian missile and six drones landed inside the country during attacks on Thursday.
The ministry said six ballistic missiles and 125 drones were intercepted during the latest wave of Iranian attacks.
Since Saturday, the UAE has reported three deaths and 94 injuries related to Iranian attacks.
Italy will join France and Spain in sending naval assets to help protect Cyprus, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told the Italian parliament on Thursday.
Crosetto spoke of deploying Italian "naval assets" to defend Cyprus, as quoted by the ANSA news agency.
The Mediterranean island, which hosts British military bases, has been targeted by drones since the start of the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran.
British bases in Cyprus have traditionally served as hubs for U.K. and allied military activity across the Middle East.
-ABC News' Camilla Alcini
