What happens next in Iran? This urgent question that's on everybody's mind was put to US president Donald Trump after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, died in a US and Israeli airstrike on Saturday.
Israel and the United States attacked Iran weeks after authorities ruthlessly crushed mass protests, killing thousands. The demonstrations, initially sparked by economic anxiety but also including calls for greater social freedoms, were considered one of the most serious threats to the religious state.
The Pentagon said that three US service members were killed in the operation and five seriously wounded in the operation it has called "Epic Fury."
ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent, Jonathan Karl, asked Trump if he has insight into what the new leadership will look like?
"Yes, we have a very good idea," Trump told the ABC reporter in a phone interview on March 1, without elaborating on who and how.
As the conversation between the two progressed, Trump changed his tune.
"The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates," Trump told him.
"It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead," the reporter said, quoting Trump.
The 86-year-old cleric was killed after decades of trading threats and, more recently, missiles with Israel and the US. Satellite images showed the secure compound in downtown Tehran where his residence and offices had been, reduced to a gray mass. Four members of his family, including his daughter and a grandchild, were also killed.
Iran's judiciary confirmed that Ali Shamkhani, a top adviser to Khamenei, and General Mohammad Pakpour, the head of Revolutionary Guards, were among those killed.
There is no organised opposition in Iran. The constitution doesn't allow for political factions that question or refuse to recognise the Islamic Republic and the concept of a religious supreme leader as immutable.
Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince of Iran and son of the deposed Shah of Iran, emerged in recent protests as a masthead for many and helped drive thousands to take to the streets in early January. He is a polarising figure in Iran and is yet to secure any backing from Trump.
The country's remaining top political and security officials appear to be making decisions having spent the months since Israel and the US's air strikes in June preparing for the possibility of war and Khamenei's potential assassination.
Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, a close adviser to Khamenei for years, has gained prominence since the June attacks after the country's decision-making and national-security institutions were reorganised. He's made public statements about what happens next in both the conflict and the succession process in Tehran.
A council comprising President Masoud Pezeshkian, the head of the judiciary and a senior cleric from the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, will take on the leader's duties for now, Larijani has said.
But with Khamenei dead, it's likely that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) - the powerful wing of Iran's armed forces originally designed to protect the regime and its supreme leader - will assume much more power potentially at the expense of the next supreme leader.
For almost half a century, the Islamic Republic, which emerged after the 1979 revolution in Iran that ousted the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, one of the US's strongest and most important allies in the region, has acted as an implacable foe to Israel and a constant challenge to Washington and its interests.
The vacancy at the top of Iran's leadership structure also raises questions about whether the country's nuclear policy will change.
(With agency inputs)
