Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, visits Hezbollah’s office in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 1, 2024. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

The powerful son of Iran’s slain supreme leader emerged on Wednesday as a frontrunner to succeed him as the US stepped up its military campaign against Tehran.

As new explosions rang out in Tehran, plans were in doubt for a funeral for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, killed by Israeli forces on Saturday in the first assassination of a nation’s top ruler by an airstrike.

The body had been expected to lie in state in a vast Tehran mosque from Wednesday evening, but state media reported a farewell ceremony had been postponed.

Two Iranian sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Iran’s slain supreme leader, was not in Tehran when his father was killed in a strike that destroyed the leader‘s compound.

Iran said the Assembly of Experts that will select the new leader would announce its decision soon, only the second time it will have done so since the Islamic Republic’s founding in 1979.

Assembly member Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami told state TV the candidates had already been identified but did not name them.

Israel said it would hunt down whoever was chosen.

Other candidates for supreme leader include Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder and a champion of the reformist faction sidelined in recent decades.

But the favorite appears to be Mojtaba Khamenei, who has amassed power as a senior figure in the security forces and the vast business empire they control, the Iranian sources said. Choosing him would send a signal that hardliners were still firmly in charge.

Some Iranians have openly celebrated the death of the supreme leader, whose security forces killed thousands of anti-government demonstrators only weeks ago in the biggest domestic unrest since the era of the revolution.

But Iranians angry with the government said there was unlikely to be much sign of protest while bombs are falling.

“We have nowhere to go to protect ourselves from strikes, how can we protest?” Farah, 45, said by phone from Tehran, adding that the security forces “are everywhere. They will kill us. I hate this regime, but first I have to think about the safety of my two children.”

Meanwhile, in a sign of the US military’s reach, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a US submarine had sunk an Iranian warship off the southern coast of Sri Lanka. At least 80 people were killed, Sri Lanka’s deputy foreign minister told local television.

The United States and Israel pressed on with their round-the-clock assaults on Iran that began on Saturday. The top US commander said the campaign was “ahead of the game plan” and Hegseth said the US was winning the conflict.

“This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down,” Hegseth told a briefing. “Our air ​defenses and ​that of our allies ‌have ⁠plenty of runway. We can sustain this fight ​easily ​for ⁠as long as we ​need to.”

A New York Times report said that Iranian intelligence had reached out to the CIA early in the war about a path toward ending the conflict.

The report said that officials in Washington were skeptical of an “off-ramp” for now, while Trump said on Tuesday that Iranians wanted talks but it was “too late.”

Smoke rises after an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, Lebanon, March 4, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi

Israel warned residents to immediately leave a swathe of south Lebanon on Wednesday, ordering them to move north of the Litani River on the third day of full-blown hostilities with the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.

Lebanon has emerged as a theater in the war that has engulfed the region since the United States and Israel attacked Iran. Hezbollah launched drones and rockets at Israel on Monday, prompting Israeli retaliation.

Nearly 60,000 people have fled the fighting, the United Nations said, adding to tens of thousands who were already displaced by a 2024 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

An Israeli military spokesperson published a map on Wednesday of the area in southern Lebanon that he said residents should evacuate, an area amounting to around 8% of Lebanese territory.

A day after Israel‘s defense minister said he had authorized the military to advance and take control of additional positions, Israeli troops had moved into at least nine towns in southern Lebanon, a senior Lebanese security official told Reuters.

The Israeli military said two soldiers were wounded as a result of anti-tank fire, the first reported injuries among Israeli troops since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday.

ISRAELI TROOPS ‘A LITTLE FARTHER’ INSIDE LEBANON

The Lebanese army said it had redeployed troops from some border positions in light of Israeli incursions into southern Lebanon.

It said it had arrested 26 Lebanese nationals in various places who were carrying weapons without a license but did not say whether they were members of Hezbollah. The Lebanese cabinet on Monday voted to outlaw Hezbollah’s military activities.

The Israeli military declined to comment on any specific new deployments in Lebanon.

A spokesperson said the military was “positioning troops a little farther” into Lebanon than before, “to prevent any attacks against the northern communities” in Israel.

Israel has kept troops at several locations inside Lebanese territory since its 2024 war against Hezbollah.

While Israel has already warned residents to leave dozens of villages in the south, Wednesday’s order was the broadest yet, covering an area between the border and the Litani River, which meets the Mediterranean some 10 km (6 miles) north of Tyre, a historic port city and one of Lebanon’s biggest.

The Israeli warning told residents to immediately move north of the river “to guarantee your safety.”

Many thousands of Lebanese have already fled their homes in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, and the south, parts of the country that bore the brunt of the 2024 war.

50 KILLED IN LEBANON, SAYS HEALTH MINISTRY

An Israeli airstrike hit a four-story building in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbeck, killing six people and wounding 15, the Lebanese National News Agency reported. It said rescue workers were still searching for missing people.

A strike also hit a hotel in the Beirut suburb of Hazmieh, well outside the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs.

Hezbollah announced a number of attacks on Wednesday, including one using what it described as a precision-guided missile that it said was fired at a military facility in northern Israel, and another with attack drones fired at a base 120 km (75 miles) inside Israel.

On Tuesday, missiles fired from Lebanon set off air raid sirens as deep into the country as its main commercial hub Tel Aviv. An Israeli military source said they were fired by Hezbollah. There was no immediate claim by the group.

The Lebanese health ministry has said 50 people have been killed in Lebanon since Monday and 246 wounded.

There have been no reported fatalities in Israel as a result of attacks by Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shi’ite Muslim group established by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982.

During the 2024 fighting, tens of thousands of Israelis were evacuated from towns in the border area but many have now returned. Israeli officials have said there are no plans to remove them for now.

Hezbollah said it opened fire on Monday to avenge the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday in the US-Israeli attack.

Israeli military spokesperson Effie Defrin said the Israeli military had attacked more than 250 Hezbollah targets throughout Lebanon over a 48-hour period.

Israel has invaded Lebanon several times since 1978, and occupied a belt of territory in the south until 2000, when it withdrew following years of guerrilla warfare by Hezbollah.