Iran’s Assembly of Experts named Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country’s new supreme leader, state media reported on Sunday, following the opening strike in the nine-day U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, was appointed by a committee of senior Shiite clerics after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in the country for more than three decades, was killed in an airstrike, the United States confirmed on Feb. 28.