Who is Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran's new supreme leader?

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son Mojtaba was chosen by Iran’s Assembly of Experts to succeed his late father as supreme leader.

The clerical body named the 56-year-old mid-ranking cleric, who has survived the US-Israeli air war on Iran, as successor more than a week ‌after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in an air strike, Iranian media reported.

A member of the council, Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir, said in a video on Sunday that a candidate had been selected based on Khamenei’s guidance that Iran’s top leader should be “hated by the enemy”.

“Even the Great Satan (US) has mentioned his name,” Heidari Alekasir said of the chosen successor, days after US President Donald Trump said Mojtaba was an “unacceptable” choice for him.

Mojtaba Khamenei amassed power under his father as ​a senior figure close to the security forces. He has opposed reformers seeking to engage with the West as it tries to curb ​Iran’s nuclear programme.

His close ties with the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) give him added leverage across Iran’s political and security apparatus and he has built ⁠up influence behind the scenes as his father’s “gatekeeper”, sources familiar with the matter said.

“He has strong constituency and support within the IRGC,” said Kasra Aarabi, head ​of researching the IRGC at United Against Nuclear Iran, a US-based policy organisation.

The supreme leader has the final say on matters of state, including foreign policy and Iran’s nuclear programme. Western powers want to ​prevent Tehran developing nuclear arms. Iran says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes only.

Mojtaba Khamenei could face opposition from Iranians who have shown they are ready to stage mass protests to press their demands for greater freedoms

He was born in 1969 in the holy Shi’ite city of Mashhad and grew up as his father was helping lead the opposition to the Shah. As a young man, he served in the Iran-Iraq war.

Mojtaba Khamenei ​studied under religious conservatives in the seminaries of Qom, Iran’s center of Shi’ite theological learning, and has the clerical rank of Hojjatoleslam.

He has never held a formal position in the Islamic Republic’s government. ​He has appeared at loyalist rallies, but has rarely spoken in public.

The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Mojtaba Khamenei in 2019, saying he represented the supreme leader in “an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position” aside from working in his father’s office.