5JUN

IDF hits Assembly of Experts during vote

3 min read

08:43UTC

The IDF hit the Assembly of Experts headquarters while the body chose Ali Khamenei's successor. Members of the constitutional body were among the casualties.

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ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

Striking a constitutional deliberative body mid-session is without clear modern precedent in the laws of armed conflict, creating legal ambiguity that both sides will exploit and that sets a potentially destabilising international norm.

The IDF struck the Assembly of Experts headquarters in Tehran on Tuesday while the body was meeting to choose a successor to Ali Khamenei. Multiple members were killed or wounded, according to Israel Hayom and Middle East Eye. Iranian state media claimed the Building had been evacuated before the strike — a claim that cannot be independently assessed while Iran's internet blackout holds connectivity at 1% of normal levels . No foreign journalists are operating inside Iran.

The timeline of the succession vote relative to the strike is unresolved. Whether the Assembly voted before the strike, in its chaotic aftermath, or reconvened in a dispersed emergency session at an alternate location has not been established by any source with direct knowledge. The Assembly's headquarters in Tehran had already been struck during the campaign's opening hours , when Chatham House analyst Sanam Vakil assessed that the body might not convene until operations wound down. It convened anyway — and was hit again.

The strike fits an established pattern of targeting Iran's institutional infrastructure. The IRGC's Sarallah headquarters, state broadcaster IRIB's Tehran offices , and now the body constitutionally responsible for choosing The Supreme Leader have all been struck. President Trump stated that Iran's "new leadership" had been specifically targeted . The progression from military sites to the state broadcaster to the succession body itself represents the systematic dismantling of institutional capacity — command, communications, and now political continuity.

Targeting a constitutional body during a succession process has no direct precedent in the conflict between these states. Iran's last leadership transition — when Ali Khamenei succeeded Ruhollah Khomeini in June 1989 — occurred peacefully, within hours of Khomeini's death, by a body that was intact and uncontested. This succession occurred under bombardment, in a communications blackout, with members of the selecting body among the casualties. Whether the strike was timed to disrupt the vote or coincided with it through operational scheduling is unknown. The effect on the legitimacy of the outcome is the same.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The Assembly of Experts is Iran's body of senior clerics that — constitutionally — appoints and can remove the Supreme Leader. Israel struck their headquarters while they were in the middle of choosing Khamenei's successor. It is roughly equivalent to bombing a parliament during a vote to elect a new head of state. Whether that makes it a legitimate military target — on the grounds that the successor would command Iran's war effort — or an attack on a civilian constitutional institution is genuinely contested under international law. Both Iran and its adversaries know the legal ambiguity and will use it to their respective advantage.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Israeli targeting doctrine since the 2006 Lebanon war — the 'Dahiya doctrine' — holds that civilian infrastructure used for strategic purposes becomes a legitimate military target. The IDF appears to have assessed the succession deliberation itself as a strategic military decision, treating the identity of the next Supreme Leader as operationally relevant to Iran's conduct of the war and the Experts' session as therefore targetable.

Escalation

The strike's operational outcome may have achieved the inverse of IDF intent: by disrupting the succession process, it appears to have accelerated a rushed, constitutionally invalid result producing a Supreme Leader wholly dependent on the IRGC with no internal clerical counterweight — removing the moderating pressures on Iranian war strategy more effectively than simply killing Experts members would have.

What could happen next?

Consequence
The strike's acceleration of the succession process — producing a constitutionally contested result under duress — may have handed Iran a propaganda narrative of Israeli interference in Iranian sovereignty that strengthens domestic support for the new leadership among populations otherwise sceptical of dynastic succession.
Short term · Assessed
Risk
If the succession vote is later characterised as coerced or constitutionally void, it creates a legal and political pretext for internal power struggles or rival factions to contest Mojtaba's authority.
Medium term · Suggested
Precedent
Striking a constitutional deliberative body during a succession process sets a norm other state actors could invoke to justify targeting legislative or constitutional institutions during armed conflict.
Long term · Assessed

Source Landscape

This story draws on mixed-leaning sources from Israel and United Kingdom

Israel

United Kingdom

Israel's April 2024 strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus — killing IRGC Quds Force commanders — is the nearest precedent in this conflict cycle and triggered Iran's first direct mass missile-and-drone barrage against Israeli territory.

The Qom strike is qualitatively different: it targeted a constitutional deliberative body rather than a military command node, raising questions under International humanitarian law that the Damascus strike did not.

Why it’s relevant now

The Damascus precedent suggests Iran will treat the Qom strike as requiring significant retaliation; the constitutional character of the target may amplify domestic pressure for response beyond what a military facility strike alone would generate.

International humanitarian law scholars at the ICRC and Chatham House's International Law Programme would note that the Assembly of Experts occupies genuinely ambiguous status under IHL: it is not purely civilian (it appoints the functional equivalent of a commander-in-chief) nor a military command node.

Targeting it during an active wartime succession vote tests the principle of distinction in ways not previously addressed by international courts or established state practice, and may generate precedent-setting legal and doctrinal debate regardless of military outcome.

Sources:Israel Hayom·Middle East Eye

Mentions:Qom →Ali Khamenei →Assembly of Experts →Pentagon →International humanitarian law →IRIB →Sanam Vakil →Chatham House →National Security Council (Iran) →Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) →Israel Defense Forces (IDF) →Israel →Iran →Tehran →Donald Trump →Middle East Eye →Sarallah Headquarters →

First Reported In

Update #17 · IRGC installs Khamenei's son as leader

Israel Hayom· 4 Mar 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Iran succession stalls; seat stays empty

The Assembly of Experts HQ in Qom, previously struck in the campaign's opening hours (ID:590), was struck again on Tuesday while the body was actively convening to vote on a successor — escalating from infrastructure denial to targeting the governance process itself

Occurred 2 Mar 2026

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This Event

IDF hits Assembly of Experts during vote

The body constitutionally responsible for selecting Iran's Supreme Leader was struck mid-session during the first leadership transition in 35 years. The vote's timeline and legitimacy cannot be independently verified during a communications blackout now in its sixth day.

Led to

Mojtaba Khamenei announcement delayed

The IDF strike on the Assembly of Experts in Qom disrupted succession proceedings and contributed to the delay in formal announcement and burial

Occurred 5 Mar 2026

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Assembly schedules vote for Mojtaba

Session held online near Qom shrine due to targeting risk after Israel struck Assembly's Qom headquarters

Occurred 5 Mar 2026

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Different Perspectives

International Group of P&I Clubs

The Group has kept its Hormuz war-risk exclusion in force through the entire shipping recovery, even as London hull war-risk premiums fell to about 2% of vessel value. A burning LNG carrier off Limah is now the fresh case for holding that line, with mutual pooling meaning one hit reprices the strait for every owner at once.

Jordan

Jordan's government said no threats existed at Aqaba hours before Iranian missiles landed there, and has not addressed the IRGC's claim that Jordanian civilians and soldiers supplied targeting intelligence for the strike. Amman hosts forces it does not command and is saying as little as it can.

United States (CENTCOM)

The Pentagon named two of the seventeen American dead, 1st Lieutenant Tyler Feehan and Private Isabella Gonzales, both killed at Jordan's Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, days after its Amman embassy had warned citizens away from Aqaba's airport and seaport. Washington is naming its own cost while flagging threats it declines to attribute publicly.

Iran

Iran said on Monday it disabled two oil tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz without its permission, asserting a right to license passage through the strait it borders. Tehran named neither vessel, and CENTCOM had already denied a comparable Iranian claim on 18 July.

Qatar

Qatar moved from summoning Iran's deputy ambassador on 8 July to a dated written claim at the UN Security Council thirteen days later, citing Resolution 2817 and reserving its Article 51 right of self-defence. Doha is building a permanent record while still hosting CENTCOM's forward headquarters and mediating with Tehran.

CENTCOM

CENTCOM confirmed a third American service member died in northern Iraq on 19 July clearing unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone, and recovered unidentified remains at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. The Pentagon has framed its Khuzestan strikes as degrading IRGC capacity, a rationale that stretches to explain a reactor foundation with no nuclear material in it.