Iran has appointed Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as its new Supreme Leader, amid an intensifying war with the US and Israel.
Earlier, US President Donald Trump rejected Mojtaba’s appointment as a new Supreme Leader, while Israel said it would target whoever assumes the position.
Iran’s New Supreme Leader
In the early hours of Monday, Iran’s Assembly of Experts announced that Mojtaba Khamenei was elected to succeed his father as the country’s Supreme Leader.
“By a decisive vote, the Assembly of Experts, appointed Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei as the third Leader of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the Assembly said in a statement.
The Assembly of Experts is a body comprising 88 Islamic clerics tasked with choosing Iran’s Supreme Leader, according to Reuters.
Mojtaba’s father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed alongside several top officials in an airstrike on February 28, 2026, at the start of the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran.
Who Is Mojtaba Khamenei?
Mojtaba Khamenei is one of the most influential figures in the Iranian clerical establishment. He is a mid-ranking cleric who received his theological education at the hands of hardline conservatives in the seminaries of Qom. He was born in 1969 in the city of Mashhad, and served in the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s.
Mojtaba is a hardliner who enjoys close ties to the Revolutionary Guards, which strengthen his leverage within Iran’s political and security apparatus. However, he had never assumed a formal position in the government.
Mojtaba has kept a low profile, making appearances in loyalist rallies but rarely speaking in public. In 2019, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Mojtaba for representing the Supreme Leader in “an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position.”
His election as the new Supreme Leader makes him the third to hold that position since 1979.
Backing the New Leader
Following the announcement of Mojtaba’s appointment, Iranian institutions and politicians issued statements to back and pledge allegiance to the new Supreme Leader. “We will obey the commander-in-chief until the last drop of our blood,” Iran’s Defense Council said in a statement.
Importantly, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pledged allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei, calling his appointment an “important and decisive” decision, according to Iranian media.
Similarly, senior cleric Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli-Larijani described Mojtaba’s appointment as “a balm for the spiritual suffering of our people and an emphasis on the need to continue the luminous path of the late Imam (Khamenei senior).”
Iran also announced a nationwide gathering at 3 pm Monday to pledge allegiance to the new Supreme Leader, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
US Reaction
Trump previously said that the election of Mojtaba Khamenei would be “unacceptable” to him, stressing that the new Supreme Leader must get approval from the US.
“He’s going to have to get approval from us. If he doesn’t get approval from us he’s not going to last long,” Trump told ABC News in an interview before Mojtaba’s appointment.
“We want to pick a president that’s not going to be leading their country into a war,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday.
However, after the new leader’s selection, Trump declined to comment. “We’ll see what happens,” he said in an interview with the Times of Israel.
Israeli Threats
Meanwhile, Israel vowed to target whoever assumes the position. In light of this, the Israeli military threatened that the “long arm” of Israel “will continue to pursue the successor and anyone who tries to appoint him.”
Following initial reports regarding Mojtaba’s selection, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned on Wednesday that Iran’s next leader would be a target for elimination.
“Every leader appointed by the Iranian terror regime to continue and lead the plan to destroy Israel, to threaten the United States and the free world and the countries of the region, and to suppress the Iranian people – will be an unequivocal target for elimination. It does not matter what his name is or the place where he hides,” he wrote on X.
