Mojtaba Khamenei named Iran’s new supreme leader

He will succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US-Israeli strikes

Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been named as his successor as Iran’s supreme leader.

Ali Khamenei led Iran from 1989 until his death during the opening wave of US-Israeli strikes on Tehran on February 28.

Iran’s Assembly of Experts, tasked with vetting and selecting the supreme leader, announced on Monday that Mojtaba Khamenei had been chosen after “precise and extensive deliberations.”

The Assembly called on “the noble nation of Iran, especially the elites and intellectuals of the seminaries and universities, to pledge allegiance” to the new leader tasked with advancing the Islamic system of government that replaced the shah after the 1979 revolution.

Born in 1969, Mojtaba is the second of Ali Khamenei’s six children. As a young man, he fought as a volunteer during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and later studied religion in Qom, one of Iran’s holiest cities and a major center of Shia theology. 

Mojtaba’s sister and several other relatives were killed in the same airstrike that killed his father. Israeli media reported that Mojtaba himself was wounded in the attack.

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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), through its media arm Sepah, has pledged allegiance to the new supreme leader.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani thanked the Assembly of Experts for convening despite ongoing airstrikes, including last week’s strike on the Assembly’s headquarters in Qom. He said the selection of the new supreme leader proceeded in a timely and orderly manner despite “the tricks of enemies who had hoped for a deadlock” following the death of Ali Khamenei.

The appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei comes after US President Donald Trump said there would be no deal with Iran to end the war except through its “unconditional surrender.”