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Iran names new supreme leader

Iran has named Mojtaba Khamenei as the country’s new supreme leader following the killing of his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes, the state-run media announced early Monday.

He was selected by Iran’s Assembly of Experts, an 88-member body of elected senior clerics tasked with choosing the supreme leader.

Mojtaba, a mid-ranking cleric with close ties to the powerful Revolutionary Guards, had long been viewed by elements of Iran’s ruling establishment as a potential successor to his father, who was killed after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on 28 February.

Key events

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Trump says decision on ending war will be ‘mutual’ with Netanyahu – report

Donald Trump has said a decision on when to end the war with Iran will be a “mutual” one he’ll make together with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Times of Israel is reporting.

It said Trump also claimed in a brief telephone interview on Sunday that Iran would have destroyed Israel if he and Netanyahu had not been around, quoting the US president as saying:

Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it … We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel.

Trump was asked whether he alone would decide when the war with Iran ends or if Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, would also have a say. Trump responded:

I think it’s mutual … a little bit. We’ve been talking. I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account.

The report said that when Trump was asked whether Israel could continue the war against Iran even after the US decided to halt its strikes, he said he declined to entertain the possibility before adding: “I don’t think it’s going to be necessary.”

A newly emerged video appears to show a US airstrike targeting a building at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval base adjacent to the elementary school in Minab where Iranian state media says more than 160 pupils were killed on 28 February, CNN has reported.

The video, posted by the semi-official Iranian news agency Mehr News, is the first to show missiles striking the area and adds to a body of evidence that appears to contradict recent claims by Donald Trump casting blame on Iran, the report says.

It continues:

In the footage, filmed from a nearby construction site, a munition consistent with an American BGM or UGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is seen before it strikes a location inside the IRGC base. The US Navy operates Tomahawks, launching them from its surface ships and submarines. Israel does not operate the Tomahawk missile, according to experts.

As the camera pans to the right, a huge plume of smoke is seen from the direction of the Shajareh Tayyiba elementary school in Minab. Dozens of people can be seen in the foreground running away from the strikes.

NEW: A newly surfaced video shows a munition consistent with a US Tomahawk cruise missile striking a building at the IRGC naval base in Minab adjacent to the elementary school where Iranian state media says more than 160 pupils were killed Feb. 28.
Donald Trump has blamed Iran… pic.twitter.com/J2UW5KVuLU

— Gianluca Mezzofiore (@GianlucaMezzo) March 8, 2026

The US state department has ordered all non-emergency government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia “due to safety risks”.

The US embassy in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, conveyed the order in a post on X.

Callum Jones

After the sharp fall of the ASX 200 in Sydney, leading stock markets across Asia are also under significant pressure this morning. Japan’s Nikkei 225 is down 6.1%. South Korea’s Kospi is down 6%.

A weekend of escalating violence in the Middle East intensified concerns around a sustained energy supply crunch, boosting oil prices beyond $100 per barrel, to their highest levels in four years.

Donald Trump, who closely monitors the movement of US stock markets, has already commented on the latest surge of oil, describing it as “a very small price to pay” for safety and peace, even as the fallout from the US-Israel war with Iran continues.

All eyes will be on Wall Street later. Pre-market trading data puts the Dow Jones industrial average, S&P 500 and tech-focused Nasdaq Composite to start the week deep in the red.

There’s more on the oil price surge here:

Iran fires missiles at Israel after new supreme leader chosen – report

Iran fired its first missiles towards Israel on Monday after the appointment of Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, state broadcaster Irib said.

“Iran fires first wave of missiles under Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei towards occupied territories,” it said on its Telegram channel, cited by the AFP news agency.

Irib posted a picture of a projectile bearing the slogan “At Your Command, Sayyid Mojtaba”, a Shia religious reference.

Who is Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei?

The second son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei, has been chosen as the successor to Iran’s slain supreme leader.

The clerical body responsible for selecting Iran’s highest authority announced the decision on Sunday and called on Iranians to rally behind him and preserve national unity.

But Donald Trump has already said Khamenei would be an “unacceptable” choice, while Israel said it would pursue Iran’s next supreme leader.

Mojtaba Khamenei is a 56-year-old cleric who has never held elected office or formally occupied a senior position in the Iranian government.

He has spent much of his life at the centre of Iranian power while mainly staying out of public view.

Mojtaba Khamenei, centre, in Tehran in 2019. Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

Khamenei was born in 1969 in the north-eastern city of Mashhad, and was raised within the political and clerical world that emerged after the 1979 revolution. As the Guardian’s Lorenzo Tondo has also written:

As a young man he studied theology in the seminaries of Qom and reportedly took part in the final stages of the Iran-Iraq war.

Unlike many figures in Iran’s leadership, Khamenei never pursued elected office or a prominent government role. Instead, he gradually became an influential presence inside his father’s office, where he was widely seen as part of a small circle managing political access to the supreme leader.

Over the years he cultivated close relationships with conservative clerics and elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps … His name surfaced publicly during the disputed 2009 presidential election, when reformist figures accused him of playing a role in supporting the security crackdown that followed mass protests. But he has never discussed the issue of succession publicly.

Australian share market plunges nearly 3% as Iran conflict triggers market wipeout

Luca Ittimani

Australia’s share market tumbled 3% this morning, wiping nearly $90bn from the value of the country’s biggest companies.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 fell to 8,576.2 points in early trading, after closing at 8,851 last week.

Markets have started to expect the US will continue its war on Iran, which has restricted oil shipping and sent energy prices soaring. Global oil prices surged past US$100 a barrel this morning for the first time since 2022, now sitting at around US$106.

Almost nowhere is safe, with 186 of Australia’s top 200 listed companies falling in value. The big banks are down 3% each, rare earths producers Iluka, Liontown and Lynas are down 5% or more and Qantas and Virgin Airlines are down 6% each.

The only winners are adjacent to the energy sector: gas companies Santas, Beach and Woodside, petrol retailers Ampol and Viva and coalminers.

Economic disruption from the war on Iran has also sent the US dollar surging in value, at the expense of the Australian dollar, which has fallen back below 70 US cents.

South Korean and Japanese stocks have reportedly fallen sharply amid the Middle East crisis.

Brent crude oil price surges to $108

More now on oil prices, which have passed $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022 as intensifying military aggression in the Middle East continues to wipe 20m barrels of oil a daily from the market.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, was at $107.97 after trading resumed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, up 16.5% from its Friday closing price of $92.69.

West Texas Intermediate – the light crude oil produced in the US – was selling for about $106.22 a barrel, the AP is reporting. That is 16.9% higher than it closed on Friday at $90.90.

The increases followed the US crude price jumping by 36% and Brent crude rising by 28% last week.

Donald Trump has brushed aside concerns about the surging price of oil caused by the US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran, saying on his Truth Social platform:

Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace.

The US president added in capital letters: “Only fools would think differently.”

There’s more on the surge in global oil prices in our latest full report here:

Clashes in east Lebanon as Israeli forces land in area – report

Clashes broke out in eastern Lebanon on Monday after Israeli forces landed by helicopter on the Lebanese-Syrian border, state media reported.

“Fierce clashes are taking place … towards the outskirts of the town of Nabi Sheet to repel Israeli forces that carried out a landing by helicopters on the heights of the eastern mountain range towards the Lebanese-Syrian border and are trying to advance,” Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

Agence France-Presse, citing the report, has now quoted two sources in Hezbollah as claiming on condition of anonymity that the group downed an Israeli helicopter in the area.

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