Title is wrong. He's an Ayatollah, not the Ayatollah. The actual article title is "Hardline cleric Arafi joins wartime leadership as Iran juggles conflict, succession".
Arafi was appointed to an interim three-member leadership council to manage state affairs alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian and Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, following Khamenei's killing at the start of U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28.