Iranian ayatollah Abbas-Ali Soleimani, a member of the Assembly of Experts for Leadership of Iran, was assassinated on Wednesday morning in the northern city of Babolsar, according to Iranian media reports.
Soleimani was a former representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei’s representatives are clerics who officiate on behalf of the supreme leader at a provincial level.
Soleimani’s killer has been detained, the Fars news agency said.
The Assembly of Experts is a powerful clerical body that supervises, appoints and in theory can sack the supreme leader.
The southern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan and one of Iran’s poorest, faced months of intensive anti-government protests sparked by the death in custody of a young Iranian woman in September.
This is a developing story.
Read More: Senior Iranian ayatollah Abbas-Ali Soleimani assassinated – report
