Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei picking supreme leader successors

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has chosen a secret list of three potential successors if he succumbs to the same fate as his growing list of valued lieutenants — another handful of whom were killed in overnight Israeli strikes Saturday.

Khamenei, 86, the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader since 1989, believes that either Israel or the US will try to kill him and crafted the list while holed up in a bunker, ordering his nation’s Assembly of Experts — the clerical body responsible for appointing the supreme leader — to choose from his handpicked pool should his enemies be successful, officials told The New York Times.

“If you needed any more evidence that the ayatollah is shaking in his boots, look no further than him identifying his three stooges,” a source close to the White House told The Post.

Khamenei’s 55-year-old son, Mojtaba, also a cleric and close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was once rumored to be a front-runner, but was not included on the ayatollah’s succession list, as Israel continues to dominate the skies over Tehran.

Who his three named candidates are is not clear — but the move is a deviation from Iran’s typical process for appointing a supreme leader.

Normally, the clerics pick a leader from their own list of candidates, in a process that could take months.

“The top priority is the preservation of the state,” said Vali Nasr, an Iran expert and professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University, told The Times about Khamenei’s decision.

“It is all calculative and pragmatic.”

The supreme leader has been relaying his wishes to his commanders through a single trusted aide — abandoning his use of electronic communications, according to the report.

Spokespeople for Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

The Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Intelligence has also ordered all senior government officials and military commanders to remain below ground, according to two Iranian officials.

He has also been running through his chain of military command to choose an array of replacements for his growing list of murdered lieutenants.

Two commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in separate strikes Saturday — including the “founder of the Iranian regime’s plan to destroy Israel,” officials in Tel Aviv said. 

Saeed Izadi led the Palestine Corps of the overseas arm, known as the Quds Force, which was a “key coordinator” between Iran and Hamas, and helped arm the terrorist group ahead of its Oct. 7, 2023 massacre.

Benham Shahriyari was also killed. He led the arm’s weapons transfer unit, and was responsible for supplying missiles and rockets launched at Israel to Hezbollah, Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis, according to the IDF.

“Like the new head of the Iranian military whom the Israelis killed last week only days after he was promoted, these guys are not long for this world,” a former Trump administration national security official told The Post. “Their new godly command should be to book a one-way ticket out of the country ASAP.”

The fear of assassination is so rampant that the Ministry of Intelligence issued numerous security protocols that restrict officials from using any electronic devices to communicate.

All senior government officials and military commanders have also been ordered to hide underground.

Khamenei retreated into a bunker when the Iran-Israel conflict broke out last week — abandoning his highly secure compound in Tehran called the “beit rahbari,” or leader’s house.

He has delivered two recorded messages to the public, both insisting Iran would not surrender.

“The people of Iran will stand against a forced war,” he said in one.