Iran names Khamenei’s shadowy, hardline son Mojtaba as new supreme leader |
Iran’s ruling clerics on Sunday appointed their slain leader’s son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, as the country’s new supreme leader, after the US called him unacceptable and Israel vowed to kill whomever the Islamic Republic appointed.
The Assembly of Experts convened to choose Iran’s next supreme leader nine days after the US and Israel launched a bombing campaign on the Islamic Republic, killing the elder Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggering Iranian missile and drone strikes on Israel and the region. Mojtaba Khamenei’s mother, wife and son were reportedly also killed, and Israeli officials believe Mojtaba himself was wounded after being targeted in a strike last week.
The 56-year-old Mojtaba was “appointed and introduced as the third leader of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran, based on the decisive vote of the respected representatives of the Assembly of Experts,” the 88-member clerical body said in a statement.
The clerical body said it “did not hesitate for a minute” in choosing a new leader, despite “the brutal aggression of the criminal America and the evil Zionist regime.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) later pledged allegiance to the new supreme leader, saying it was “ready for complete obedience and self-sacrifice in carrying out the divine commands of the Guardian Jurist of the time, His Eminence Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei.”
Sources familiar with the matter said Mojtaba Khamenei’s close ties with the IRGC gave him added leverage across Iran’s political and security apparatus, and that he had built up influence behind the scenes as his father’s “gatekeeper.”
پخش خبر انتخاب سومین رهبر انقلاب اسلامی، آیتالله سید مجتبی خامنهای، در شبکه خبر صدا و سیمای جمهوری اسلامی ایران pic.twitter.com/JMdoBP5dNb — SNN.ir | خبرگزاری دانشجو (@snntv_fa) March 8, 2026
پخش خبر انتخاب سومین رهبر انقلاب اسلامی، آیتالله سید مجتبی خامنهای، در شبکه خبر صدا و سیمای جمهوری اسلامی ایران pic.twitter.com/JMdoBP5dNb
— SNN.ir | خبرگزاری دانشجو (@snntv_fa) March 8, 2026
Iranian state media published what was said to be footage of people celebrating across Iran following the announcement of Mojtaba Khamenei’s appointment.
In separate footage published on social media, which could not be independently verified, people in Tehran could be heard yelling “Death to Mojtaba” from their windows.
The position of supreme leader gives Mojtaba Khamenei the final word in all matters of state in the Islamic Republic, including control of its military and of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium that could be used to build a nuclear weapon, should the new supreme leader decree it.
People chanted “Death to Mojtaba” from their windows in Tehran’s Ekbatan neighborhood early Monday shortly before Iran's Assembly of Experts announced Mojtaba Khamenei as the country’s new supreme leader, according to a video shared on social media. pic.twitter.com/nEiM7x7AbM — Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) March 8, 2026
People chanted “Death to Mojtaba” from their windows in Tehran’s Ekbatan neighborhood early Monday shortly before Iran's Assembly of Experts announced Mojtaba Khamenei as the country’s new supreme leader, according to a video shared on social media. pic.twitter.com/nEiM7x7AbM
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) March 8, 2026
His appointment signaled that hardliners in the Iranian regime were holding on to power despite the US-Israeli bombing campaign. The appointment could also face opposition from Iranians who have shown they are ready to stage mass protests to press their demands for greater freedoms despite bloody crackdowns by the authorities.
Before the appointment was made public, Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir, a member of the Assembly of Experts, said the body had selected a new supreme leader based on the elder Khamenei’s guidance that the top job should be held by someone who is “hated by the enemy.”
“Even the Great Satan [US] has mentioned his name,” Heidari Alekasir said of the chosen successor, days after US President Donald Trump said Mojtaba Khamenei was an “unacceptable” choice, and suggested Iran’s economy could be rebuilt if an “acceptable” supreme leader were chosen.
Trump had previously dismissed the younger Khamenei as a “lightweight,” and again on Sunday that he should have a say in the appointment of Iran’s new supreme leader.
“If he doesn’t get approval from us, he’s not going to last long,” he told ABC News before the announcement was made.
Speaking with The Times of Israel after the appointment was announced, Trump declined to comment on it, sufficing with answering: “We’ll see what happens.”
Israel had threatened to kill anyone named supreme leader by the Islamic Republic, with Defense Minister Israel Katz saying Wednesday that “any leader appointed by the Iranian terror regime to continue leading the plan to destroy Israel, threaten the US and the free world and the countries of the region, and oppress the Iranian people, will be an unequivocal target for elimination.”
The IDF repeated the threat on Sunday, saying ahead of the Assembly of Experts’ meeting that “the State of Israel will continue to pursue any successor and any person who seeks to appoint a successor” to Ali Khamenei.
“We warn all those who intend to participate in the successor selection meeting that we will not hesitate to target you, either,” the IDF said.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was defiant on Sunday, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Iran alone would decide on its supreme leader and would “allow nobody to interfere in our domestic affairs.”
He added that Trump must “apologize to people of the region” for starting the war.
US-sanctioned hardliner’s father reportedly considered him a ‘master’
Mojtaba Khamenei was born in 1969 in the holy Shiite city of Mashhad and grew up as his father helped lead the opposition to the US-backed Shah, who was toppled in the 1979 revolution that heralded the Islamic Republic. He is Ali Khamenei’s second son.
As a young man, Mojtaba Khamenei served in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. He also studied under religious conservatives in the seminaries of Qom, Iran’s center of Shiite theological learning.
Mojtaba Khamenei amassed power under his father as a senior figure close to Iran’s security forces and the vast business empire they control. He has opposed members of Iran’s so-called reformist camp who sought to engage with the West as it tried to curb Iran’s nuclear program.
He has never held a formal position in the Islamic Republic’s government. He has appeared at loyalist rallies, but has rarely spoken in public.
His role has long been a source of controversy in Iran, with critics rejecting any hint of dynastic politics in a country that overthrew a US-backed monarch in 1979.
Khamenei has worked closely with the IRGC, a US- and EU-designated terror group. This has included work with commanders of both the elite Quds Force, which facilitates the Islamic Republic’s regional network of anti-Israel terror proxies, and the volunteer Basij force, which killed thousands of anti-regime protesters in January, the US Treasury has said.
The US sanctioned him in 2019, during Trump’s first term, over his work to “advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.”
That includes allegations that, from behind the scenes, Mojtaba Khamenei supported the election of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 and his disputed reelection in 2009 that sparked the Green Movement protests, which were also violently suppressed at the time.
Mahdi Karroubi, who was a presidential candidate in 2005 and 2009, denounced Khamenei as “a master’s son” and alleged he interfered in both votes. Ali Khamenei reportedly said at the time that Mojtaba was “a master himself, not a master’s son.”
The younger Khamenei “has strong constituency and support within the IRGC, in particular amongst the younger radical generations,” said Kasra Aarabi, who researches the IRGC at United Against Nuclear Iran, a US-based policy organization.
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