Mojtaba Khamenei, son of ayatollah killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes, named Iran’s new supreme leader, state media reports

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A statement from the Assembly of Experts — the panel of Shia clerics responsible under Iranian law for choosing the country’s top leader — said Mojtaba Khamenei had been selected as the third leader of the Islamic Republic, according to reports from IRIB state TV and the Fars, Tasnim and ISNA news agencies.

Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, the second son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is widely viewed as a hard-line figure with close ties to the powerful Revolutionary Guard. Israel has already described him as a potential target, while President Donald Trump had called him “unacceptable.”

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The younger Khamenei had been considered a potential leader prior to the American-Israeli attack that killed his father, though the idea was not universally popular given the 1979 toppling of the U.S.-backed hereditary monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Mojtaba Khamenei, Son Of Irans Supreme Leader
Mojtaba Khamenei in Tehran in 2019.Morteza Nikoubazl / NurPhoto via Getty Images
The semiofficial Mehr News Agency confirmed last week that Khamenei’s son was alive and well after the deadly strikes launched by the U.S. and Israel that killed his father, his wife and other family members.

Mojtaba Khamenei has not been heard from since the start of the conflict.

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A politician and cleric, he is known to hold significant influence among regime administrators and the Revolutionary Guard, the paramilitary force leading Iran’s retaliatory campaign.

But he lacks the religious credentials of his father to lead a clerical regime, which claims to represent God’s will on Earth.

His father became supreme leader in 1989 and soon, Mojtaba Khamenei and his family had access to the billions of dollars and business assets spread across the globe.

His own power rose in the years to come, with U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in the late 2000s referring to the younger Khamenei as “the power behind the robes.” The United States sanctioned him in 2019 during Trump’s first term over working to “advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.”

Trump told Axios last week that the choice would be “unacceptable” and suggested he wanted to handpick a new supreme leader, a process usually overseen by Iran’s clerics.