When U.S. and Israeli airstrikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran last week, Iran was left with a dangerous vacuum at the very top of its power structure.
Ali Khamenei, 86, had been Iran’s supreme leader since 1989. He succeeded Khomeini, the founder of the post-Shah Iran, who steered the country’s 1979 revolution.
Now, sources familiar with Iran’s clerical establishment told Reuters that Mojtaba Khamenei, the late leader’s 56-year-old son, could be his potential successor.
His ascension would be historic and deeply controversial: a son inheriting supreme leadership in a republic founded on the explicit rejection of dynastic rule.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, threatened to assassinate any Iranian leader picked to succeed Khamenei, “no matter what his name is or the place where he hides.”
How Iran’s Power Structure Works
At the apex of Iran’s system sits the Supreme Leader, who holds near-absolute authority over foreign policy, the military, the judiciary, and the nuclear programme. The president and parliament are secondary to whoever occupies this role.
The Supreme Leader is chosen by the Assembly of Experts, which consists of 88 members, mostly senior clerics, themselves elected by citizens but pre-vetted by the Guardian Council, a body whose members are partly appointed by the outgoing Supreme Leader.
A simple majority selects the successor when the position falls vacant. Currently, an Interim Leadership Council of President Masoud Pezeshkian, Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, and cleric Alireza Arafi holds power in the gap.
The Assembly of Experts is “close to a conclusion” and will announce its decision soon, Assembly member Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami told state TV on Wednesday, without naming the candidates.
Who Is Mojtaba Khamenei?
Mojtaba was born in the city of Mashhad in 1969, the second son of Ali Khamenei. After graduating high school, he studied Islamic theology, with early teachers including his own father and Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi.
Mojtaba’s wife, Zahra Haddad Adel, who was reportedly killed in Saturday’s airstrikes, was the daughter of a prominent hardliner, the former parliament speaker Gholamali Haddadadel.
Mojtaba occupies a role similar to that of Ahmad Khomeini during Ruhollah Khomeini‘s supreme leadership — a combination of aide-de-camp, confidant, gatekeeper, and power broker. He served in the Iran-Iraq War from 1987 to 1988, forging bonds with men who rose to lead the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) most powerful intelligence units.
He reportedly took control of the Basij militia that crushed the 2009 election protests, and is widely credited with engineering hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad‘s rise to the presidency in 2005.
In 2019, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned him for acting in place of the Supreme Leader without election or appointment, and for working with the IRGC’s Quds Force to advance the regime’s “destabilising regional ambitions.”
Mojtaba’s path faces real obstacles. While some reports from 2022 indicated he was given the title of Ayatollah, he holds the rank of “hojatoleslam” — a mid-tier clerical title below the ayatollah level, which the role traditionally demands.
A father-to-son succession also carries uncomfortable echoes of the monarchy Iran’s revolution overthrew. Notably, his own father reportedly excluded him from a list of potential successors drawn up last year. However, he remained in the running, particularly after another leading candidate for the role, former President Ebrahim Raisi, died in a helicopter crash in 2024.
According to a Bloomberg report, Mojtaba oversees a sprawling investment network via properties and channels billions of dollars in funds into Western markets. Although his exact net worth is not known, accounts indicate he would at least be a millionaire.
Photo courtesy: Shutterstock
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