Mojtaba Khamenei, son of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
| Photo Credit: AP
Mojtaba Khamenei has reportedly been chosen as Iran’s next Supreme Leader, state media reported on Sunday (March 8, 2026)
The announcement by the Iran’s Assembly of Experts got here simply over every week after his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s demise on February 28, 2026 in joint strikes by Israel and the U.S.
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The 56-year-old mid-ranking cleric, who has survived the U.S.-Israeli air struggle on Iran, was named because the successor after the council had kind of reached a “majority consensus”. Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir, mentioned in a video on Sunday (March 8, 2026) {that a} candidate had been chosen primarily based on Khamenei’s steerage that Iran’s prime chief ought to be “hated by the enemy”.
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Who is Mojtaba Khamenei?
Mojtaba Khamenei is the second son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh. He was born on September 6, 1969, in Mashhad, a significant Shia spiritual centre in northeastern Iran. He has 5 siblings — three brothers and two sisters.
Childhood amidst father’s revolution
Mr. Mojtaba spent most of his childhood amid his father’s lively resistance towards the Shah of Iran’s monarchy, which finally led to the election of Ali Khamenei because the nation’s Supreme Leader and the train of serious political and army energy.
With his father repeatedly being arrested by SAVAK(the Shah’s secret police), a lot of Mr. Mojtaba’s childhood was spent in frequent raids and turmoil.
After the 1979 revolution, the household moved to Tehran, the place Mr. Mojtaba attended the distinguished Alavi High School.
He additionally studied underneath spiritual conservatives within the seminaries of Qom, Iran’s heart of Shi’ite theological studying, and has the clerical rank of Hojjatoleslam.
Military life
Mr. Mojtaba joined the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) quickly after finishing his training and reportedly fashioned lifelong ties with comrades who later went on to carry excessive posts within the Iranian army institution.
He additionally served within the Habib Battalion throughout the last years of the Iraq-Israel struggle of 1987-88.
Shadow energy
Mr. Mojtaba shouldn’t be thought of a significant chief within the Iranian institution or a high-ranking spiritual scholar. He has by no means been elected and holds no formal authorities put up. He has appeared at loyalist rallies, however has not often spoken in public. However, he’s broadly believed to have managed the Office of the Supreme Leader and has been reportedly “gatekeeping” it attributable to his deep ties with the IRGC and the Intelligence companies.
He has additionally opposed reformers in search of to interact with the West because it tries to curb Iran’s nuclear programme.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Mr. Mojtaba in 2019, saying he represented the supreme chief in “an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position” apart from working in his father’s workplace.
Its web site mentioned Khamenei had beforehand delegated a few of his obligations to Mr. Mojtaba, who it mentioned had labored intently with the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force and the Basij, a spiritual militia affiliated with the Guards, “to advance his father’s destabilising regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives”.
What does his succession imply for Iran?
The number of Mr. Mojtaba is historic as a result of Iran’s institution has lengthy rejected the thought of hereditary succession from father to son. This can be seen as unfavourable by Shiite clerics. Thus, his appointment will likely be a departure from conventional political and spiritual norms.
Mr. Mojtaba was a selected goal for criticism by protesters throughout unrest over the demise of a younger lady in police custody in 2022, after she was arrested for allegedly breaching the Islamic Republic’s strict gown codes.
In 2024, a video was broadly shared wherein he introduced the suspension of Islamic jurisprudence courses he was instructing at Qom, fuelling hypothesis concerning the causes.
He was broadly believed to have been behind the sudden rise of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected president in 2005. He additionally backed Ahmadinejad in 2009 when he received a second time period in a disputed election which resulted in anti-government protests that had been violently suppressed by the Basij and different safety forces.
Mr. Mojtaba’s appointment because the Supreme Leader will imply a continuation of the late Ali Khamenei’s legacy, in an indication that hardliners had been nonetheless firmly in cost.
With inputs from Reuters
Published – March 09, 2026 03:23 am IST
