Mojtaba Khamenei has been selected as the new Supreme Leader of Iran following the death of his father, Ali Khamenei, who was reportedly assassinated earlier this month during air strikes carried out by United States and Israel on Tehran.
The decision was announced shortly after midnight in Tehran by the Assembly of Experts, the powerful 88-member clerical body responsible for selecting the country’s highest authority. In a formal statement, the council confirmed that Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei had been chosen by a decisive vote, making him the third Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The appointment places Mojtaba Khamenei at the center of Iran’s political, military, and religious power structure during one of the most volatile periods in the country’s modern history. As Supreme Leader, he now holds ultimate authority over the government, the armed forces, and key state institutions.
Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said that the recent military operations killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and injured thousands more. The conflict has also claimed American lives, with the United States Military confirming that a seventh service member died from injuries sustained during Iran’s retaliatory strikes.
The announcement came a day after Donald Trump presided over the return of the remains of six other American personnel who were killed during the attacks.
Despite international calls for restraint, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the parliamentary speaker of Iran, declared that Tehran is not seeking a ceasefire and will continue responding to what it described as foreign aggression.
Who is Mojtaba Khamenei?
Mojtaba Khamenei has largely remained out of the public spotlight for most of his life. The 56-year-old cleric has never held a formal government position and rarely appears publicly, giving almost no speeches or interviews.
Despite this low profile, many analysts believe he exercised considerable influence behind the scenes during his father’s leadership. Interestingly, Ali Khamenei rarely spoke publicly about potential successors, and two years ago a member of the Assembly of Experts claimed the late leader opposed the idea of his son being considered for the role, though this was never officially confirmed.
Born in 1969, Mojtaba is the second of Ali Khamenei’s six children. He studied at Alavi School in Tehran before briefly serving in the military at age 17 during the Iran–Iraq War, the devastating eight-year conflict that shaped Iran’s deep distrust of Western powers.
In 1999, he moved to Qom, one of the most important centers of Shia religious scholarship, to continue his theological education. Notably, he began wearing clerical attire around that time and entered the seminary at approximately 30 years of age.
A similar precedent occurred in 1989, when Ali Khamenei himself was rapidly elevated to the rank of Ayatollah shortly after becoming Supreme Leader.
Mojtaba Khamenei first attracted political attention during the 2005 presidential election, which brought hardline leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Reformist candidate Mehdi Karroubi accused Mojtaba in an open letter of interfering in the election by allegedly using elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia to distribute money among religious groups in support of Ahmadinejad.
