Khamenei’s son is selected as Iran’s supreme leader; 7th U.S. service member dies

WASHINGTON- The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran entered its ninth day on Sunday without any clear path to de-escalation, as the United States announced that a seventh American service member had been killed and Iranian state television reported the selection of the supreme leader’s son, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as his successor.

President Trump said the deployment of U.S. ground troops to the Middle East remains under review and Iran’s foreign minister has rejected calls for a ceasefire.

Trump also said last week that Mojtaba Khamenei – the son of the 86-year-old former leader killed on the first day of US and Israeli attacks – would be an “unacceptable” choice to replace his father.

However, the religious body tasked with choosing Iran’s next supreme leader still chose Mojtaba Khamenei, state television reported Sunday.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Saturday, Trump refused to rule out the possibility of sending U.S. forces to Iran, saying it could “eventually happen” as the conflict escalates.

“There would have to be a very good reason,” Trump said. “I would say if we ever did that, they would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight on the field.”

Trump’s remarks came before another day of relentless bombing in Iran, and as desalination plants, critical to providing water to civilians in the arid region, have come under attack from both sides of the conflict.

The US military announced on Sunday that an American service member died on Saturday evening from injuries sustained on March 1 in Saudi Arabia during Iran’s “first attacks” on US allies and installations in the region, in response to attacks by the United States and Israel. The soldier was not immediately identified, pending notification of family.

Other deaths were also reported in the region. Israel reported that two of its soldiers were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon – its first military deaths of the war – while Saudi Arabia reported that two people were killed and 12 injured by a military projectile that fell in a residential area.

The death toll in Iran is difficult to assess, but the Iranian ambassador to the UN on Friday put the figure at more than 1,300.

Iran has said it is prepared to continue the war despite heavy losses, and would be ready to fight U.S. ground troops if they entered the country.

“We have very courageous soldiers, who expect any enemy that enters our soil to fight alongside them, kill them and destroy them,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Araghchi added that Iran was not considering a ceasefire at the moment. He said the United States and Israel should first explain “why they started this aggression and then guarantee that there would be a permanent end to the war.”

“If we don’t succeed, I think we must continue to fight for the sake of our people and our security,” he said.

Araghchi also last week rebuffed Trump’s demand to get involved in determining Iran’s future leadership as a condition for ending the conflict.

“We do not allow anyone to interfere in our internal affairs. It is up to the Iranian people to elect their new leader,” Araghchi said. “This is solely the business of the Iranian people, and no one else’s.”

In addition to increasing deaths and widespread destruction, the economic toll of the war has also continued to rise, particularly in energy markets.

“If the war continues like this, there will be no way to sell oil and no capacity to produce it,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a message posted on social media on Sunday. He added that the war would affect not only the United States, but also the rest of the world “because of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s illusions.”

Israeli strikes hit an oil storage facility in Tehran on Sunday, marking what appears to be the first time a civilian industrial facility has been targeted during the war. Black smoke billowed over the Iranian capital, and officials warned of dangerous effects on residents’ health.

“By targeting fuel depots, the aggressors are releasing hazardous materials and toxic substances into the air, poisoning civilians, devastating the environment and endangering lives on a large scale,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on X.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that there is currently a “fear premium in the market” and sought to assure Americans that soaring oil prices are a short-term problem.

“We never know exactly when it’s going to happen,” Wright said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But in the worst case it takes a week, it’s not a matter of months.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed the same assurances in an interview with Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” calling rising gas prices a “near-term disruption.”

“Ultimately, eliminating the rogue Iranian regime will be a good thing for the oil industry,” Leavitt said. “These prices will fall as they have over the past year, driven by President Trump’s agenda of American energy dominance.”

The strike on oil storage facilities comes as Netanyahu promises “many surprises” for the next phase of the conflict.

Israel also claimed Sunday to have “destroyed” the Tehran headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ AF Air Force, which it said operated Iran’s “ballistic missile command, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) network and other air force units”; and said he killed five senior Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders who were “hiding in a civilian hotel” in central Beirut, Lebanon.

Critical civilian infrastructure has also been attacked, on both sides of the conflict.

Bahrain has denounced what it sees as an Iranian attack on one of its desalination plants, facilities that provide water to millions of people in the arid deserts of the Persian Gulf. Araghchi said a U.S. airstrike first damaged an Iranian desalination plan on Qeshm island.

“Attacking Iranian infrastructure is a dangerous move with serious consequences. It was the United States that set this precedent, not Iran,” Araghchi wrote in an article on X.

The United States also came under close scrutiny after evidence suggested a U.S. strike was likely responsible for an explosion at an Iranian elementary school that killed more than 165 people, most of them children.

Trump administration officials said the matter was under investigation and no determination had been made about who was responsible for the strike. But on Saturday, Trump said Iran was responsible for the explosion.

“This was done by Iran,” Trump told reporters. “As you know, they are very inaccurate with their munitions. They have no accuracy. Iran did it.”

Asked on Sunday whether Iran had evidence that the attack was carried out by the Americans, Araghchi said it must have been either the U.S. or Israeli military and said Trump’s suggestion that Iran was responsible for the attack was “funny.”

“This is our school, these are our students and our girls, and they are attacked by an American fighter, a fighter plane, and they were killed. Why [is] Iran responsible? said Araghchi.

Other world leaders and nations have called for an end to the fighting and added their own estimates to the toll.

Lebanon says more than half a million people have been displaced by fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he spoke with Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian on Sunday and urged him to stop strikes in the region. Macron is the first Western leader to speak with Pezeshkian since the start of the war, the Associated Press reported.

Pope Leo

He asked the world to pray “that the roar of the bombs stops, that the weapons fall silent and that a space opens for dialogue, in which the voices of the people can be heard.”