How succession works in Iran and who could be the country’s next supreme leader

By JON GAMBRELL

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after almost 37 years in power raises paramount questions about Iran’s future.

The contours of a complex succession process began to take shape the morning after Khamenei’s killing in an airstrike campaign by the United States and Israel.

Here is what to know:

Temporary leadership council

As outlined in its constitution, Iran on Sunday formed a council to assume leadership duties and govern the country.

The council is made up of Iran’s sitting president, the head of the country’s judiciary and a member of the Guardian Council chosen by Iran’s Expediency Council, which advises the supreme leader and settles disputes with parliament.

Iran’s reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and hard-line judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, are its members who will step in and “temporarily assume all the duties of leadership.”

Panel of clerics

Though the leadership council will govern in the interim, an 88-member panel called the Assembly of Experts “must, as soon as possible” pick a new supreme leader under Iranian law.

The panel consists entirely of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constit...