This handout picture taken in Tehran on October 30, 2024, and provided by the office of Iran's supreme leader, shows Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran's slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on Feb. 28, in a U.S.-Israeli military strike. AFP-Yonhap
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was named as his successor Sunday, had long been considered a contender to the post even before an Israeli strike killed his father and despite the fact he had never been elected or appointed to a government position.
A secretive figure within the Islamic Republic, Mojtaba Khamenei was not seen publicly in the days after an Israeli airstrike targeting the supreme leader’s offices killed his 86-year-old father at the start of the war. Also killed in that strike were the younger Khamenei’s wife, Zahra Haddad Adel, who came from a family long associated with the country’s theocracy.
Mojtaba Khamenei will now have a central say in Iran's war strategy with the country's powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard answering to him. The announcement of his selection came after signs of a rift among Iranian officials as Iran awaited the decision by the 88-seat Assembly of Experts, a group of clerics that selects the supreme leader.
His candidacy may have been indirectly boosted by U.S. President Donald Trump who criticized Khamenei in an interview with news website Axios on Thursday and insisted that he be involved in selecting Iran’s next leader. “They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment,” Trump said, referring to his operation that saw the U.S. military seize former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro . “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me,” Trump added. “We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.”
Profile of Khamenei's son rose after airstrike
The idea of having Mojtaba Khamenei replace his father had been criticized as potentially creating a theocratic version of Iran's former hereditary monarchy. But his stock rose after his father and his wife were killed and became martyrs in the war against America and Israel in the eyes of hard-liners.
The younger Khamenei has gained control not only of an Iranian military now at war but also a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that could be used to build a nuclear weapon — should he choose to decree it.
Prior to his selection, Khamenei had occupied a similar role to that of Ahmad Khomeini, a son of Iran's first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini — "a combination of aide-de-camp, confidant, gatekeeper and power broker,” according to United Against Nuclear Iran, a U.S.-based pressure group.
Plumes of smoke rise over the oil depot tanks hit by joint Israel-U.S. overnight in a station northwest of the capital in Tehran, Iran, March 8. UPI-Yonhap
Source: Korea Times News
