Tehran : Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei survived a second round of US strikes on Tehran after being wounded in the initial attacks that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on February 28. Mohsen Heydari, a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, said Mojtaba was taken to a hospital in Tehran after the strikes but was caught in another attack when the medical facility was bombed.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Mojtaba is alive and remains in charge. He said the secrecy surrounding the Supreme Leader’s whereabouts was necessary because US and Israeli forces had targeted Iran’s senior leaders and commanders. Pezeshkian’s remarks came in response to US President Donald Trump, who had said that Mojtaba was not dead, but was “seriously wounded”. “I don’t think he’s dead. He was very seriously wounded. The left side of his body, the arm, the leg, the whole thing.
He was very seriously wounded. But I don’t think he’s dead,” Trump told conservative radio host Glenn Beck in August. Meanwhile, cleric Heydari said the Assembly of Experts had received information that Mojtaba was healthy and capable of leading Iran when it selected him. Describing Mojtaba as a “man of the shadows”, Heydari said the younger Khamenei had not held a formal political position before becoming the Supreme Leader. Mojtaba earlier served as an adviser to his father.
Mojtaba was named Iran’s Supreme Leader on March 8, 10 days after his father’s death. The Assembly of Experts, which is responsible for selecting the country’s Supreme Leader, held a secret meeting under heightened security to choose Ali Khamenei’s successor. Heydari said the Assembly’s Qom secretariat had also been targeted in US strikes, killing eight people and destroying documents related to the succession process.
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