Tehran, Iran - Iran was preparing to name a successor to its slain supreme leader on Sunday, after US-backed Israeli strikes destroyed fuel depots in Tehran, sparking blazes that covered the city in acrid smoke.

Nine days after US-Israeli strikes on his compound killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and plunged the Middle East into war, Iran's Assembly of Experts met privately and chose their next leader, members of the body said.

The clerics did not say who had been selected, only that a name would be announced soon. Some suggested Khamenei's 56-year old son Mojtaba Khamenei would succeed his father.

US President Donald Trump had demanded a say in the nomination, while Israel's military warned any successor that "we will not hesitate to target you."

But Tehran's top diplomat said Sunday that the decision was Iran's alone, adding it would "allow nobody to interfere in our domestic affairs."

Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi went on to demand Trump "apologize to people of the region and the Iranian people for the killings and destruction."

The younger Khamenei is regarded as a conservative figure, notably because of his ties with the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the Islamic republic's military.