leader

Monday, March 9, 2026 Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been chosen as Iran’s new supreme leader following his father’s killing in U.S.-Israeli strikes, positioning a low-profile but long-rumored power broker at the apex of the Islamic Republic. The selection cements a potentially dynastic handover at the heart of a system founded in 1979 on religious authority and revolutionary legitimacy rather than hereditary succession. Mojtaba Khamenei has never held public office, rarely appeared in…

Iran’s Assembly of Experts has chosen Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, to succeed his late father as supreme leader, cementing hard-line control more than a week after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an air strike, Iranian media reported. The clerical body elevated the mid-ranking cleric, long seen as a power broker with close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, following internal deliberations shaped by loyalty tests and wartime rhetoric. In a video message, council member Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir said the…

Somalia says senior al-Shabab planner behind 2025 attacks killed in Lower Shabelle strike MOGADISHU, Somalia (AX) — Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency said Tuesday it killed a senior al-Shabab leader accused of orchestrating several of the extremist group’s deadliest operations last year, including the assault on the Godka Jilacow detention complex in Mogadishu. NISA said the March 1 operation took place in the Hantiwadaag area of Awdheegle district in the Lower Shabelle region and was conducted in…

Iran declares 40 days of mourning as state media confirm Khamenei killed in Israeli-US strikes Iranian state media on Sunday confirmed that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed at his office during Israeli-US attacks on Iran, an escalation that has jolted the region and set Tehran on a 40-day period of mourning for its paramount leader. The announcement followed hours of uncertainty after the Tasnim and Mehr news agencies initially reported that Khamenei was “steadfast and firm in commanding the field.” The…

Hargeisa — Former North Western State of Somalia President Muse Bihi Abdi has urged the current administration to publicly release the full text of its agreement with Israel, warning that any pact must be balanced and protect religious sensitivities as diplomatic tensions surge across the Horn of Africa. In remarks delivered this week in the North Western State of Somalia capital, Bihi said the government has not clarified the legal nature of its arrangement with Israel — whether it is a treaty, a memorandum of understanding…

Jesse Jackson, the Baptist minister and civil rights leader who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and elevated Black political power for more than six decades, died peacefully this morning at 84, his family said in a statement. “Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the family said. “His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he…

Hungary’s opposition leader Peter Magyar vowed at a Budapest rally to end corruption, restore civil liberties and revive a stalled economy, sharpening his challenge to Prime Minister Viktor Orban ahead of the April 12 parliamentary election. Magyar, head of the Tisza party, has emerged as the most potent threat to Orban since the nationalist leader returned to power in 2010. Tisza has led Orban’s Fidesz party in opinion polls for months, turning the race into the most competitive contest in more than a decade. “Not only has…

Australia’s centre-right Liberal Party has elected Angus Taylor as its new leader, replacing Sussan Ley after less than a year in the job, local media reported. The move elevates a prominent conservative who lobbied to drop the party’s commitment to net zero emissions, signaling a sharpened debate over the opposition’s direction on climate policy and its broader appeal to voters. Taylor, a former energy minister, emerges from the party’s “national right” faction and was seen as a key proponent of the Liberals’ decision in…

Egypt’s Sisi heads to UAE after talks with Somali leader in Cairo CAIRO — Egypt’s presidency said President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is traveling to the United Arab Emirates for a fraternal visit to meet UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, with talks focused on developments in the Horn of Africa. The trip comes shortly after al-Sisi hosted Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Cairo, underscoring how shifting alignments in the Horn are drawing intensified attention from key Arab and African partners. In a…

Hamas will not surrender its weapons or accept foreign oversight in Gaza, senior leader Khaled Meshal said in Doha, rejecting U.S. and Israeli demands as a U.S.-brokered Gaza cease-fire moves into a phase that envisions demilitarization and an Israeli withdrawal. “Criminalizing the resistance, its weapons, and those who carried it out is something we should not accept,” Meshal told a conference in the Qatari capital. “As long as there is occupation, there is resistance. Resistance is a right of peoples under occupation ……