Iran names Ayatollah Khamenei's son, Mojtaba, as new supreme leader: Media reports

Iran named Mojtaba Khamenei its new Supreme Leader on Sunday, the Associated Press and Reuters reported, citing Iranian state media.

Khamenei is the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the opening salvos of the war. He was considered a top contender for the role. The elder Khamenei had ruled Iran since 1989 until his death.

Khamenei’s appointment will hand him control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and other hardline groups.

The Revolutionary Guard issued a statement expressing support, the Associated Press reported, and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah shared a portrait of the younger Khamenei on Telegram, captioned: “Leader of the blessed Islamic revolution.”

The selection ensures that hardliners remain in control of Iran’s government, and is a direct affront to U.S. President Donald Trump, who has insisted that the U.S. will have a role in approving the country’s next leader.

Trump has previously referred to Mojtaba Khamenei as a “lite weight.”

He earlier threatened that a new leader in Tehran would be short-lived if the decision was made without his approval.

“He’s going to have to get approval from us,” Trump told ABC News. “If he doesn’t get approval from us, he’s not going to last long. We want to make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it.”

TheWhite Housedid not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The Israel Defense Forces, which is leading the Iran offensive with the U.S., said Sunday it would “pursue every successor and every person who seeks to appoint a successor.”

“We warn all those who intend to participate in the successor selection meeting that we will not hesitate to target you either. This is a warning!” the IDF said in a post in Farsi on X.

Iran’s neighbors in the Gulf reported more damage to infrastructure over the weekend as Iran continues to attack regional allies in retaliation for ongoing strikes by U.S. and Israeli forces.

The United Arab Emirates said it was “dealing with incoming missile and drone threats from Iran.”

“UAE air defences are currently responding to incoming missile and drone threats from Iran,” the country’s Ministry of Defense said in a post on X.

It said its defenses were intercepting ballistic missiles while fighter jets were tackling drones and “loitering munitions.”

On Saturday evening, alarms rang out across Dubai and Abu Dhabi, warning residents to “immediately seek a safe place” due to missile threats, and CNBC’s team confirmed hearing a loud explosion.

A high-rise building in Dubai’s Marina area, 23 Marina, was hit by falling debris. According to Dubai’s Media Office, no one was injured, but authorities confirmed that “debris from an aerial interception fell onto a vehicle in the Al Barsha area, resulting in the death of a Pakistani driver.”

Also on Saturday, passengers waiting for flights atDubai International Airportwere ushered into train tunnels. Iran said it had struck an air base in the United Arab Emirates.

Since the war started on Feb. 28, Iran has targeted several radar and air defenses in the Middle East — in Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — in retaliation against U.S. and Israeli attacks,The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials, military analysts and commercially available satellite images.

U.S. crude oil spiked above $100 a barrel Sunday evening after major Middle East energy producers cut output because the critical Strait of Hormuz remains impassable due to the war.

West Texas Intermediatesoared 18.98%, or $17.25, to $108.15 per barrel by 6:12 p.m. ET. Global benchmarkBrentadvanced 16.19%, or $15.01, to $107.70.

U.S. crude oilsurged about 35%last week in its biggest gain in futures trading history dating back to 1983.

The last time oil prices topped $100 per barrel was after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

The fighting in the Gulf has greatly disrupted the oil market due to the effective closure of the strait, which carries about 20% of global oil production. The bottleneck has left Gulf nations unable to export their oil.

Kuwait, the fifth-biggest producer in OPEC, announcedprecautionary cutson Saturday to its oil production and refinery output due to “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation did not detail the size of the cuts.

Output in Iraq, the second-biggest OPEC producer, has effectively collapsed. Production from its three main southern oilfields has fallen 70% to 1.3 million barrels per day, three industry officials toldReutersSunday. Those fields produced 4.3 million bpd before the Iran war.

And the United Arab Emirates, the third-biggest producer in OPEC, said Saturday that it is “carefully managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements.” The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company said its onshore operations are continuing normally.

In response to surging oil prices, the average price of gas in the U.S. has jumped to over $3.46 per gallon, according toGasBuddy, from an average of $2.94 a gallon a week earlier.

Trump and his Energy secretary,Chris Wright,sought to assure Americans that the spike in fuel prices is just a short-term problem.

“Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social Sunday evening. “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”

Wright said earlier in the day that the disruption would just last for “weeks, certainly not months.”

“We believe this is a small price to pay to get to a world where energy prices will return back to where they were,” Wright said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “Iran will finally be defanged, and now you can see more investment, more free flow of trade, less ability to threaten energy supplies.”

Bahrain said Sunday that a drone attack struck a water desalination plant.

“Iranian aggression indiscriminately attacked civilian targets and caused material damage to a water desalination plant following a drone attack,” Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior said in a post on X.

In a statement to CNBC, Bahrain’s electricity and water authority said the “Iranian attack on a water desalination facility has had no impact on water supplies or water network capacity.”

The country said “blatant Iranian aggression” damaged a university building in the Muharraq area, injuring three people, as missile fragments fell.

Meanwhile, Iran has accused the U.S. of striking a desalination plant in its country. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a social media post that the U.S. “committed a blatant and desperate crime by attacking a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island. Water supply in 30 villages has been impacted.”

“Attacking Iran’s infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences,” Araghchi said.

U.S. Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a Central Command spokesman, told MS NOW that Araghchi’s claim was false.

“The Iranian regime is doing everything it can to peddle lies and deceive,” Hawkins said. “This is the same terrorist regime that has attacked 12 different countries and continues to deliberately target civilian airports, hotels, and neighborhoods in those countries. U.S. forces do not target civilians – period.”

Elsewhere, Kuwait said two fuel depots at its international airport were hit by drones, causing a “huge fire at one of them.” The country’s Public Institution for Social Security said its headquarters were targeted, resulting in “material damage” to the building.

Meanwhile, Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iran have continued through the weekend.

Israel said it struck several fuel storage complexes belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. “The strike significantly deepens the damage to the military infrastructure of the Iranian terrorist regime,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a post on X.

The IDF also said it attacked “key commanders in the IRGC’s Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps who operated in Beirut.”

Arab foreign ministers on Sunday strongly condemnedIran’sattacks on its neighbors as a “grave threat to international peace and security.”

In a communique following their virtual meeting, the ministers expressed support to Gulf states, along withJordanandIraq,in the “measure they take to deter and respond to these aggressions.”

The ministers called forIranto immediately stop its attacks and cease “provocative acts or threats to neighboring countries.” They urged theU.N. Security Councilto condemnIranand force it to “immediately and unconditionally halt its attacks” on Arab countries.

The ministers also voiced support to Lebanese government in its efforts to disarmHezbollah, and urged the international community to pressureIsraelto immediately cease its attacks onLebanon.

The communique didn’t mentionU.S.and Israeli strikes, which triggered the war.

The U.S. Central Command reported in a post on X that another U.S. service member has died in action in the war, bringing the total number killed to eight.

The New York City Police Department said in a statement on X that Police Officer Sorffly Davius died as a result of a medical episode while deployed to Kuwait in support of “Operation Epic Fury.”

On Saturday, Trumpjoined grieving families at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, for the dignified transfer of six U.S. soldiers killed in the war in the Middle East.

The dignified transfer, a ritual that returns the remains of U.S. service members killed in action, is considered one of the most somber duties of any commander in chief.

In Lebanon, 394 have been killed; 15 people have died in Israel; Kuwait has reported 11 dead; 4 people have died in the UAE; 3 have died in Oman; 2 have died in Saudi Arabia; and 1 person has been reported killed in Bahrain, according to figures compiled by MS NOW.

— CNBC’s Spencer Kimball, Terri Cullen and The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report