Iran: Mojtaba Khamenei chosen as new supreme leader

Mojtaba Khamenei has been named Iran’s new supreme leader, just over a week after Israeli-US strikes killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with several family members, including the new leader's wife Zahra Adel, his mother Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, a son and a sister.

The Assembly of Experts – the body of 88 scholars tasked under Iran’s constitution with appointing the country’s highest authority – said on Sunday that Mojtaba had been selected as the Islamic Republic’s third supreme leader since the 1979 revolution.

The announcement came as Iran continues to face Israeli-US military attacks.

Last week, Israel struck a building in Qom, one of the main centres of Shia scholarship, where members of the Assembly of Experts were expected to meet to decide on the country’s next leader, in what appeared to be an attempt to kill its members.

The decision to appoint the slain supreme leader's son followed constitutional procedures rather than representing a hereditary transfer of power.

A 56-year-old Shia scholar, Mojtaba has previously faced assassination threats - a factor that may have strengthened his candidacy as Iran seeks to signal it will not bow to foreign pressure.

US President Donald Trump told Axios last week that such an appointment would be “unacceptable” and suggested he should have a role in choosing Iran’s next leader.

“They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment,” he said. “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me.”

Early life and educational training

Mojtaba Khamenei was born on 8 September 1969 in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, one of the country’s most important religious centres.

He is the second son of the late ayatollah, who ruled Iran as supreme leader from 1989 until he was assassinated in Israeli-US strikes on 28 February. Mojtaba is also the grandson of the Shia scholar Sayyed Javad Khamenei.

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Raised during the turbulent years of the Islamic Revolution, Mojtaba witnessed his father’s rise from a revolutionary figure to president and later supreme leader.

He later married Zahra Haddad-Adel, the daughter of prominent conservative politician and former parliament speaker, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel.

Zahra Haddad-Adel was among those killed in the strike that targeted the Khamenei family residence in Tehran.

Like many senior figures in Iran’s religious establishment, Mojtaba pursued theological studies in the city of Qom, the country’s leading centre for Shia scholarship.

There he studied Islamic jurisprudence and theology under several prominent scholars, including Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani and Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi.

Analysts say Mojtaba spent much of his career teaching in Qom’s seminaries, including advanced jurisprudence courses known as dars-e kharej, the highest level of seminary study.

Despite his long presence in religious circles, he has never held a formal government post or served in elected office.

'A decisive vote' under threat

Mojtaba Khamenei assumes leadership at a moment when Iran faces what officials describe as an existential threat to its territorial integrity and political future, as Israel and the United States intensify military pressure on the country.

State media reported that the Assembly of Experts selected him through a “decisive vote”. The body urged Iranians – “especially the elites and intellectuals of the seminaries and universities” – to pledge allegiance to the new leadership and maintain national unity.

Although Mojtaba has never stood in an election, he has long been regarded as an influential figure within his father’s inner circle.

Observers of Iranian politics say he cultivated close ties with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, he served in the IRGC’s Habib Battalion, taking part in several operations.

His appointment comes amid explicit threats from Israeli officials, who have warned they would target any successor to the slain leader, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Any leader selected by the Iranian terror regime to continue leading the plan for Israel’s destruction, threatening the United States, the free world and countries in the region, and suppressing the Iranian people will be a certain target for assassination, no matter his name or where he hides,” Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on the social media platform X last week.