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He inherited power in the middle of a war, with bombs still falling, and nobody has seen his face since. That is the strange beginning of Mojtaba Khamenei’s reign as the third Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
His father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ruled Iran for 36 years with an iron grip until the morning of February 28, 2026, when a series of Israeli and American airstrikes tore through his compound in Tehran. He did not survive. Iranian authorities confirmed his death the following day, and with it, the end of an era that had defined the Islamic Republic for more than three decades. The strikes did not only kill him. Iranian state media reported that Mojtaba’s wife, mother, sister and brother-in-law all perished in the same attack. An entire family, nearly erased in a single night.
Mojtaba survived. But only just.
He was inside the compound when it was hit. Iranian sources confirmed he was wounded in what they described as an assassination attempt carried out by Israel. State television referred to him using the word “janbaz”, a term meaning one wounded by the enemy, in what Iranian media has taken to calling the Ramadan war. The exact nature of his injuries has not been disclosed publicly. Since the war began, he has not appeared before cameras, has not given a speech, and has not issued so much as a written statement.
The men who chose him as supreme leader did so under conditions that could generously be called rushed. IRGC commanders applied significant pressure on members of the Assembly of Experts to back Mojtaba, contacting members repeatedly and cutting off debate before a vote was forced through. Those who raised objections were given little time to speak. Shortly after the vote was cast, US and Israeli bombs struck the Assembly of Experts office in Qom before counting was even complete. Despite all of this, Mojtaba walked away with nearly 85% of the votes from those present in the room.
The announcement came on a Sunday. Iran’s military and the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps moved quickly to pledge their loyalty. President Masoud Pezeshkian called it the dawn of a new era of dignity and strength. Not everyone agreed. In parts of Tehran, chants against the new leader were heard in the streets. US President Donald Trump was blunt in his response, calling Mojtaba an unacceptable choice and suggesting his time in power would be short.
The man now holding Iran’s highest office has spent most of his life deliberately in the shadows. He has never stood for election or faced a public vote. Yet for decades he has been quietly influential, building deep personal ties to the Revolutionary Guard. Born in 1969 in Mashhad, he studied in Tehran before moving to Qom to pursue a seminary education. As a young man he volunteered to fight in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, forming relationships with commanders who would later rise to the top of Iran’s security structures. For years, opponents have linked his name to the violent suppression of protesters, pointing to his alleged involvement in the crackdown on the Green Movement in 2009 and in the unrest that preceded the current war.
He holds the rank of hojatoleslam, a mid-level clerical title that sits below that of ayatollah. His father held the same rank when he was elevated to supreme leader in 1989, and the law was amended at the time to make it possible. A similar accommodation will likely be necessary for Mojtaba.
His first act in power left little ambiguity about his intentions. Within hours of his appointment being announced, Iran launched missile strikes. One of the missiles was reported to carry the words “At Your Service, Sayyid Mojtaba” written on its side. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected any talk of a ceasefire, saying the country had no choice but to keep fighting.
A leader born into war, wounded before he gave his first speech, and yet to show his face in public. Whatever comes next, the world is watching a country trying to hold its identity together at the very moment the sky above it is on fire.
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