Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has reportedly been appointed Iran’s new Supreme Leader.
Mojtaba, 56, Ali Khamenei’s second oldest son, has strong links to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and was chosen by Iran’s Assembly of Experts ‘under pressure from the Revolutionary Guards’, according to Iranian opposition outlet Iran International.
Mojtaba is not a high-ranking cleric, has never held office and does not have an official role in the regime.
But he served in the Iranian armed forces during the Iran-Iraq war and is believed to wield considerable influence behind the scenes. He has been touted as a possible successor to his father for years.
However, he was not included in a list of three senior clerics Ali Khamenei reportedly identified last year.
And his father is said to have indicated opposition to his candidacy because it would resemble the hereditary rule enacted by the US-backed Shah monarchy before it was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
Father-to-son succession is also viewed negatively in the Shiite Muslim clerical establishment in Iran.
But much of Iran’s top brass has been decimated in the latest conflict and Mojtaba has close ties with the powerful IRGC and the Basij volunteer paramilitary force.
Despite being sanctioned by the US in 2019, Mojtaba is said to oversee an investment empire of over £100million, with access to luxury properties in north London and bank accounts in the UK, Switzerland, UAE and Liechtenstein.
Mojtaba is said to own 11 properties on The Bishops Avenue – an exclusive street in Hampstead, north London, also known as ‘Billionaires’ Row’.
The Ayatollah’s second son owns the properties through a network of shell companies, one of which is registered in the tax haven of the Isle of Man.
Under Iran’s Islamic guardianship system, the Supreme Leader must be a senior leader with significant political authority.
While Mojtaba has not held senior political roles, he studied under religious conservatives in Islamic seminaries in the Shiite holy city Qom.
Born in 1969 in the holy city of Mashhad, he grew up as his father was helping to lead the opposition to the Shah.
His wife Zahra Adel and his mother, Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, are among the dead from Saturday’s strikes.
In recent years, a favorite to succeed the 86-year-old Supreme Leader had been the hardline President Ebrahim Raisi, but he was killed in a helicopter crash in May 2024.
The regime’s 88-person assembly is tasked with appointing, supervising and potentially dismissing the supreme leader.
It met on Tuesday in Qom to find a successor to Ali Khamenei, who was killed on Saturday by joint US-Israeli strikes.
Israeli and US strikes flattened the building where the assembly met. There was no information on any potential casualties.
Separate air strikes also hit Ferdowsi Square in central Tehran this afternoon with images showing injured people staggering through rubble.
The latest bombing campaign comes after Donald Trump told Iran’s surviving leaders it’s ‘too late’ to talk.
Trump warned the ‘hardest hits’ are yet to come as the fighting entered its fourth day and promised to retaliate after the US embassy in Saudi Arabia was attacked by drones.
The US President also claimed the initial wave of strikes wiped out Washington’s preferred successors to Khamenei.
He said the White House had shortlisted several preferred successors – but insisted the military campaign was ‘so successful’ it eliminated not only the primary options but also the ‘second or third’ choices.
‘The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,’ Mr Trump told ABC News.
Among the dead are one of the regime’s top advisers Ali Shamkhani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard General Mohammad Pakpour and hardline former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In a separate interview with the New York Times, Mr Trump said he had ‘three very good choices’ for the next potential leader for Iran, but did not reveal who these were.
On Monday night Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi told state TV that the killing of the supreme leader was a ‘religious crime’ that will have serious consequences.
Iran has continued to rock the Middle East with an a series of attacks across the region.
On Tuesday the US Consulate building in Dubai was struck by a drone.
Videos posted to social media on Tuesday evening showed a huge plume of smoke rising from the building, which local authorities revealed was hit by a missile.
No one was injured in the strike, the Dubai Media office said, and the fire was extinguished.
A statement read: ‘The competent authorities in Dubai succeeded in extinguishing a limited fire in the vicinity of the U.S. Consulate in Dubai resulting from a drone targeting operation, and the incident did not result in any injuries.’
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the drone is understood to have struck a car park adjacent to the consulate building, which is situated close to Dubai’s British embassy.
