Mojtaba Khamenei has been appointed as the new supreme leader of Iran following the death of his father, Ali Khamenei.
His appointment was announced shortly after midnight on Monday by the Assembly of Experts, the religious council responsible for selecting the country’s supreme leader.
Several prominent figures were reportedly considered for the position, including Alireza Arafi, hardline cleric Mohsen Araki, and Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic. However, the council ultimately chose Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, marking a rare hereditary-style transition in the leadership of the Islamic Republic.
The Islamic Revolution in Iranian Revolution ended Iran’s centuries-old monarchy under the Shah, and hereditary succession has generally been rejected within the political system.
Mojtaba Khamenei was born on September 8, 1969, in Mashhad and is one of six children of the late supreme leader. His father died at the age of 86 in Tehran during the initial wave of joint US-Israeli air strikes that triggered the latest conflict in the Middle East.
Despite maintaining a low public profile, Mojtaba Khamenei has long been regarded as an influential figure within Iran’s power structure. He is the only one of his father’s children known to have a public role, although he has never held a formal government position.
The cleric, who wears the black turban reserved for descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, is believed by some analysts to have wielded significant influence behind the scenes in Iranian politics. He is also known to maintain strong ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Those links date back to the closing years of the Iran–Iraq War, during which he reportedly served in a combat unit.
In 2019, the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned Mojtaba Khamenei during the presidency of Donald Trump, alleging that he represented his father’s authority without holding an official role. US authorities also accused him of working closely with Iranian security forces to advance Iran’s regional influence and internal policies.
Critics have further accused him of involvement in the crackdown on protests that followed the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, a political crisis that sparked widespread demonstrations.
Reports by Bloomberg have also alleged that Mojtaba Khamenei accumulated wealth exceeding $100 million through investments linked to oil revenues, including luxury real estate in Britain, hotels across Europe, and property in Dubai through offshore companies.
On the religious front, he studied Islamic theology in Qom, one of the country’s major religious centres, where he later taught. He holds the clerical rank of Hujjat al-Islam, a title below the rank of Ayatollah held by his father and by the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ruhollah Khomeini.
His wife, Zahra Haddad‑Adel and daughter of a former Iranian parliament speaker, was also reported killed in the air strikes that claimed the life of the elder Khamenei.
Following the appointment, Israel issued a warning, stating that its security forces would continue to pursue any successor to Iran’s leadership and those responsible for the appointment.
The Assembly of Experts, which comprises 88 clerics elected every eight years, has previously overseen only one leadership transition — in 1989, when Ali Khamenei was chosen to succeed Ruhollah Khomeini.
(AFP)
