Iran’s Assembly of Experts has selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Saturday, as the Islamic Republic’s next supreme leader, according to reports in Iranian opposition media.
According to reports, Mojtaba’s wife Zahra Haddad-Adel, and a son were among those killed in the airstrike that killed his father.
Khamenei survived the US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran his father Ali Khamenei was killed, two Iranian sources told Reuters on Wednesday.
It has not yet been formally announced by the regime, but outlets such as Iran International have reported on Mojtaba’s selection, citing informed sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.
If confirmed, it would mark the prospect of the Islamic Republic witnessing a father-to-son transfer of power at the regime’s apex.
So who is Mojtaba Khamenei, and why has his name hovered over succession politics for years?
Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, born in 1969 in the eastern religious city of Mashhad, is widely described by Iran-watchers as a hardline cleric who has accumulated influence without a formal portfolio, owing to the patronage of his father.
He has rarely appeared in public, but he has long been linked to the inner machinery of the state through the Office of the Supreme Leader, the central system through which the Islamic Republic’s main security, judicial, financial, and appointment levers all run through.
Profiles over the years have repeatedly described him as a gatekeeper with access to the regime’s most sensitive decision-making processes.
Mojtaba’s power is also tied to the security establishment. During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, Mojtaba reportedly served with the Habib ibn Mazahir Battalion, a volunteer-linked battalion connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Security establishment support aids Mojtaba Khamenei’s path
His security connections could also help his accession to power, during such a troubled time for Iran. The country is now in a crisis environment following the killing of Ali Khamenei, and several media outlets have framed the succession as being driven by the system’s need for speed, cohesion, and control, especially among the IRGC.
The Assembly of Experts, which was also struck by Israel in airstrikes on Tuesday, was allegedly meeting to finalize the appointment of the new supreme leader, just days after Khamenei’s death.
Mojtaba’s name became politically dangerous during the unrest that followed Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election. For years, reformist figures and opposition activists have alleged that he played a behind-the-scenes role in coordinating repression and in shaping decisions within the regime.
Those claims, though difficult to independently verify, remain part of the public mythology surrounding Mojtaba, and are one reason his potential elevation has long been controversial.
There is also the question of clerical credentials. Iran’s constitution envisions a supreme leader with a deep understanding and high profile in Islamic jurisprudence, although Ali Khamenei’s accession to power was helped when the Assembly of Experts removed a clause requiring the Supreme Leader to be a ‘marja, a title given to the highest level of Twelver Shia religious cleric, smoothing his position retroactively.
Mojtaba studied in the seminaries of Qom, but multiple profiles have described him as a mid-ranking cleric rather than a senior marja-level authority, something which has fueled criticism of his candidacy in the past. However, if the Assembly of Experts were willing to bend the rules once to allow his father to ascend to power, the same could happen to Mojtaba.
It would be ironic if the Islamic Republic, a regime that rose to power in an anti-monarchical revolution, now builds its own hereditary succession line, this time of ayatollahs instead of shahs.