Mojtaba Khamenei chosen as Iran’s supreme leader

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran’s Assembly of Experts has elected Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ali Khamenei, as the country’s new supreme leader.

The decision was made on March 8, BBC reported.

Mojtaba Khamenei was born in 1969 in the Iranian city of Mashhad. He is the second child of the former leader, received theological education and taught at a religious center in the city of Qom. Until now, he had remained largely in the shadows, holding no senior positions, making no public speeches and giving no interviews.

At the same time, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reiterated on March 8 in a post on X their promise to pursue anyone who becomes Ali Khamenei’s successor as Iran’s supreme leader, Deutsche Welle reported.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview with the American online outlet Axios on March 5 that he opposes Mojtaba Khamenei coming to power in Iran and is ready to personally take part in selecting the country’s new leader.

“They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a nobody. I must participate in the appointment, as in the case of Desli (after the kidnapping of Venezuela’s acting president Maduro) in Venezuela,” the U.S. president said.

Trump had earlier stated that Iran’s new supreme leader, if confirmed in the position, “will not last long” unless Tehran first receives approval from the head of the White House.

“He will have to receive our approval. If he does not get our approval, he will not last long. We want to be sure we will not have to return to this issue every 10 years. I do not want them to come back to this issue in five years and have to do the same thing again or, even worse, allow them (Iran’s authorities – ed.) to obtain nuclear weapons,” Trump stressed.

Trump also noted that he is prepared to approve a candidate connected to Tehran’s governing system. The U.S. president said that at this stage he considers Iran a “paper tiger,” while only a week earlier the country had been preparing “to attack the entire Middle East and capture the entire Middle East.”

Trump also confirmed that he has not ruled out sending special forces to control Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium. According to him, all options are “on the table.”

The U.S. and Israel believe that most of Iran’s nuclear fuel is located in underground tunnels at one of the facilities in Isfahan, while other reserves are distributed in tunnels at the Fordow and Natanz facilities. In the first days of the war, the U.S. and Israel struck the entrances to underground tunnels in Isfahan and Fordow in an attempt to seal them and prevent the removal of nuclear materials stored there.

“Theoretically, if we had physical control over that territory, if we had physical control over the places where it is located, we could send our people there and dilute it on site (to a safe level – ed.),” a representative of the U.S. administration said.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had led Iran since 1989. He was killed in U.S. and Israeli strikes on February 28. In Iran, the country’s supreme leader, who holds the position for life, is appointed by the Assembly of Experts. This state body consists of 88 members who are considered specialists in Islamic law. The council is elected by Iranian citizens every eight years.

Since February 28, the U.S. and Israel have launched strikes on Iranian territory. Iran responded with drones and missiles, striking Israel and Middle Eastern countries considered allies of Washington in the region. Tehran said the targets of its strikes were U.S. military bases located in those countries.