Live Updates: Iran’s Choice of Leader Signals Defiance; Oil Price Surge Rattles Markets

 

Live Updates: Iran’s Choice of Leader Signals Defiance; Oil Price Surge Rattles Markets

Top clerics selected Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader, despite President Trump’s warning that he was “unacceptable.” Oil prices surged to their highest levels since the pandemic, reflecting growing alarm over a prolonged war.

 

Farnaz Fassihi

Yan Zhuang

Updated

March 9, 2026, 7:13 a.m. ET24 minutes ago

Farnaz Fassihi and Yan Zhuang

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03/09/world/iran-war-trump-israel-lebanon

 

Here’s the latest.

Iran projected defiance in the face of expanding U.S.-Israeli attacks on Monday by naming a son of its slain supreme leader as his successor, disregarding warnings from the Trump administration, while a surge in oil prices signaled growing alarm over the war’s effect on the global economy.

 

The new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was appointed by a committee of senior clerics days after President Trump declared that he was an “unacceptable choice” and amid Israeli threats to kill Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s successor.

 

Iran’s military and hard-line political forces trumpeted the selection and pledged allegiance to the new supreme leader. But in Tehran, opponents of the government could be heard chanting “Death to Mojtaba” from their windows — reflecting widespread albeit muted dissent.

 

As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which has killed hundreds of people, spreads to the wider Middle East, fears of a prolonged conflict have rippled across the world.

 

Oil prices briefly surged to almost $120 per barrel, their highest level since the Covid pandemic, and markets in Asia and Europe fell again. In the United States, Democrats said rising oil prices would inflame an affordability crisis. And Mr. Trump’s plans for the next steps in the war, let alone its endgame, remain very much unclear.

 

As the conflict entered its 10th day, Iran continued to retaliate with attacks on Israel and U.S. allies across the Persian Gulf.

 

At least one person was killed in Israel during an Iranian missile attack on Monday morning, according to Magen David Adom, the Israeli emergency service, raising the death toll in the country to at least 11. Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said Monday it had intercepted attacks headed toward the kingdom’s massive Shaybah oil field, as well as thwarted drones over northern Riyadh, the capital, and three ballistic missiles targeting a Saudi air base.

 

The State Department said on Sunday that it had ordered nonemergency American personnel and family members to leave the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia — the latest diplomatic evacuation in the region. The announcement followed several attacks from Iran on the building and in the nearby area.

 

In Bahrain, the state-owned energy company declared that it could no longer fulfill its contracts, citing the ongoing conflict and a recent attack on its refinery complex.

 

Here’s what else we’re covering:

 

Investor jitters: As Asian markets declined on Monday, spiking oil prices sparked a mass exit from the region’s previously booming stocks. Markets opened lower in Europe, too.

 

New leader: Iran’s new supreme leader is known to have close ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. He is not just Iran’s new religious and political authority but also the commander in chief of its armed forces.

 

Gulf states: Anger grew in Persian Gulf nations over the civilian toll of Iranian retaliatory strikes. Bahrain’s health ministry said that 32 people had been injured, including children, in an Iranian drone strike on Monday in the island of Sitra, near Manama, the capital. In Qatar, the foreign ministry blamed Iran for the deaths of two civilians on Sunday in Saudi Arabia, saying that an attack had targeted a residential facility.

 

School hit: A newly released video adds to the evidence that an American missile likely hit an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reported killed. The evidence contradicts Mr. Trump’s claim that Iran was responsible for the strike.

 

Lebanon: Israeli ground forces raided a new area of southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli military, part of an effort to carve out and expand a buffer zone inside the country. Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting for the past week since the Lebanese armed group, which is backed by Iran, shot rockets at Israeli territory.