Iran has appointed Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ali Khamenei, as the country’s new Supreme Leader following his father’s death in joint US-Israeli strikes on February 28, according to a report by state media early Monday.
Mojtaba was chosen by the Assembly of Experts, the 88-member body of senior clerics responsible for selecting Iran’s supreme leader.
The Assembly of Experts has made such a decision only once before since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
The previous selection occurred after the death of Ruhollah Khomeini, when Ali Khamenei was chosen as the country’s second supreme leader more than three decades ago.
The appointment has already drawn a reaction from Donald Trump, who said on Thursday that he must be “involved in the appointment” of Iran’s next leader and described the emergence of Khamenei’s son as “unacceptable.”
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The 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei is the second son of the late Iranian leader and is widely regarded as an influential figure within Iran’s political system. He is believed to have strong ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Basij volunteer paramilitary force.
Despite his influence, Mojtaba is not considered a high-ranking cleric and does not currently hold an official government position.
The United States sanctioned Mojtaba Khamenei in 2019, with the United States Department of the Treasury accusing him of working closely with the commander of the IRGC-Quds Force and the Basij to advance what it described as his father’s “destabilising regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.”
According to an Israeli source familiar with the matter, Israel targeted Mojtaba in an airstrike last week, though officials believe he was injured but survived the attack.
Recall that President Donald Trump warned that Iran’s next supreme leader might not remain in power for long without approval from the United States.
Trump made the remark during an interview with ABC News on Sunday as discussions continued in Iran over the selection of a new leader.
“He’s going to have to get approval from us,” the president said. “If he doesn’t get approval from us, he’s not going to last long. We want to make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it.”
He added that the United States does not want a situation where Iran’s leadership returns to similar tensions in a few years or potentially develops nuclear weapons.