Ali Khamenei has selected three senior clerics as likely successors to ensure regime stability as Iran faces intensified strikes.

Iran's supreme leader sent his foreign minister to Moscow on Monday to ask President Vladimir Putin for more help from Russia after the biggest U.S. military action against the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution over the weekend.

As the US weighs joining Israel’s assault on Iran, questions are mounting over whether such an intervention could trigger regime change in Tehran – an outcome that risks splintering the country and sending shockwaves across the region.