The 'vengeful' cleric, 56, is backed by the hardline Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and is viewed as even more extreme and oppressive than his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Top clerics said in a statement published in state media that they had picked Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to succeed his father.

The 'vengeful' cleric, 56, is backed by the hardline Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and is viewed as even more extreme and ...

When millions of Iranians poured into the streets in 1979 to end the rule of the former shah, their revolution seemed to have put an end to the practice of passing power from father to son. Not so.