Who is Mojtaba Khamenei? What we know about Iran's new supreme leader

Mojtaba Khamenei, a mid-ranking cleric with influence inside Iran's security forces, had been seen as a frontrunner leading up to the assembly's vote.

Iran's Assembly of Experts picked Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his late father as supreme leader, who was killed in the strikes that ignited the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Mojtaba Khamenei, a mid-ranking cleric with influence within Iran's security forces and vast business networks under his father, had been seen as a frontrunner in the lead-up to the assembly, a body of 88 clerics charged with choosing the new leader after Ali Khamenei's death, vote.

"By a decisive vote, the Assembly of Experts, appointed Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei as the third Leader of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran," the assembly said in a statement issued just after midnight Tehran time.

His appointment will likely draw the ire of President Donald Trump, who said on March 8 that the United States should have a say in the selection. "If he doesn't get approval from us, he's not going to last long," he told ABC News. Israel, ahead of the announcement, threatened to target whoever was chosen.

Here's what we know about Mojtaba Khamenei.