For decades, Mojtaba Khamenei operated in the shadows, building influence inside Iran’s clerical and security circles without ever holding an official post. Chosen as Iran’s supreme leader, the 56-year-old cleric now steps into the most powerful role in the country after his father was killed in US-Israeli air strikes.
Issued on: 09/03/2026 - RFI
A woman poses with a picture of Iran's new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei during a rally in central Tehran on Monday 9 March 2026. AFP - ATTA KENARE
Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body responsible for appointing the country’s supreme leader, elected Mojtaba Khamenei on Sunday during a secret meeting in the holy city of Qom, local media reported.
His name had recently been raised by US President Donald Trump in an interview with the American news site Axios. Trump warned that if Mojtaba Khamenei became supreme leader, “he would be killed like his father”.
Mojtaba Khamenei's wife – the daughter of hardline politician and former parliament speaker Gholamali Haddadadel – was among those killed on 28 February, the first day of the US-Israeli offensive.
For years he had been seen as a possible successor to his father, Ali Khamenei. His prospects appeared to grow after the death of another potential contender, former president Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2024.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body responsible for appointing the country’s supreme leader, elected Mojtaba Khamenei on Sunday during a secret meeting in the holy city of Qom, local media reported.
His name had recently been raised by US President Donald Trump in an interview with the American news site Axios. Trump warned that if Mojtaba Khamenei became supreme leader, “he would be killed like his father”.
Mojtaba Khamenei's wife – the daughter of hardline politician and former parliament speaker Gholamali Haddadadel – was among those killed on 28 February, the first day of the US-Israeli offensive.
For years he had been seen as a possible successor to his father, Ali Khamenei. His prospects appeared to grow after the death of another potential contender, former president Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2024.
Years building influence
The younger Khamenei spent decades cultivating close ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and strengthening his influence within Iran’s clerical establishment.
He has consistently opposed supporters of dialogue with Western countries during efforts to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“He has strong constituency and support within the IRGC, in particular amongst the younger radical generations,” Kasra Aarabi, of the US-based organisation United Against Nuclear Iran, which monitors the activities of the Revolutionary Guard, told Reuters.
Khamenei's rise has also drawn criticism from within Iran’s political system. Some opponents argue that he does not have the religious qualifications required to become supreme leader.
Others say his appointment goes against the intentions of the founders of the Iran, who sought to break with the dynastic traditions of the former monarchy of the shahs.
Shaped by revolution
Born in 1969 in the city of Mashhad, Mojtaba Khamenei grew up as his father joined Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s movement against the shah.
He later fought in the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988 and studied theology in the seminaries of Qom, the centre of Shia religious learning.
He holds the clerical title of hodjatoleslam, a rank below ayatollah in the Shia hierarchy, and wears the black turban of a sayyed – indicating direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad.
Mojtaba Khamenei has never held an official position within the government. While he has occasionally appeared at rallies supporting the regime, he has rarely spoken publicly.
Since 2019 Khamenei has been under sanctions imposed by the US Treasury Department, which said he represented the supreme leader “in an official capacity even though he was never elected or appointed to a government position”, apart from working in his father’s office.
The US also said he had been given certain powers by his father and maintained close ties with the commander of the Quds Force – the Revolutionary Guards unit responsible for operations abroad – and with the volunteer Basij militia.
It said those links were used “to advance his father’s regional destabilisation goals and domestic oppression”.
Power and wealth
The new supreme leader heads a financial empire stretching “from shipping in the Persian Gulf to Swiss bank accounts, British luxury real estate and a major Western intelligence service”, an investigation by the US media outlet Bloomberg reported earlier this year.
He is also often seen as having played a role in the rise of ultra-conservative former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected in 2005. Khamenei supported Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election four years later, which triggered a wave of protests.
In 2022 he became a frequent target of demonstrators during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement that erupted after the death in custody of student Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code.
His wife, the daughter of hardline politician and former parliament speaker Gholamali Haddadadel, was killed on 28 February in US-Israeli air strikes, along with several members of her family.
ANALYSIS
Khamenei replaces Khamenei: Iran defies Trump, signals continuity
Iran’s choice of Mojtaba Khamenei to replace his slain father, Ali Khamenei, as supreme leader signals the entrenchment of hardline cleric power and a continued resistance amid the US-Israeli military onslaught. It also underscores US President Donald Trump’s policy failure to detail the goals of the war.
Issued on: 09/03/2026 -
Khamenei replaces Khamenei: Iran defies Trump, signals continuity
Iran’s choice of Mojtaba Khamenei to replace his slain father, Ali Khamenei, as supreme leader signals the entrenchment of hardline cleric power and a continued resistance amid the US-Israeli military onslaught. It also underscores US President Donald Trump’s policy failure to detail the goals of the war.
Issued on: 09/03/2026 -
FRANCE24
By: Leela JACINTO
Trump trying to gauge whether new ayatollah is 'a leader he can work with'
“The message is very clear. It's a message of resoluteness sent by the Iranian government,” said FRANCE 24’s Siavosh Ghazi, reporting from Tehran the morning after the announcement. “The members of the Assembly of Experts have stated that he is continuing his father’s legacy…In effect, the result of the war that was started by [US President] Donald Trump and [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu is to replace an 86-year-old with a 56-year-old. So, nothing changes, and the message is: We will stay the course – and continue to resist the Americans and the Israelis.”
To prove the point, Iranian state media followed up the announcement, which was broadcast Monday around 1am local time, with a report of a new attack on Israel. “Iran fired a first wave of missiles under Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Khamenei toward [the Palestinian] occupied territories,” declared state radio stations while state TV aired a photograph of a projectile bearing the slogan, "At Your Command, Sayyid Mojtaba", using an Islamic honorific.
Iran’s oil-rich Gulf neighbours also received a business-as-usual message hours later, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar reporting new explosions and attacks on Monday. The Asian markets, opening for a new week of trading, reflected the economic strains of Iran’s blockage of the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported. Oil prices soared to a historic high of $120 per barrel on Monday morning before falling in a whiplash trading session.
‘Going full dynasty’
Nearly half a century after the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Pahlavi monarchy, the appointment of another Khamenei as leader of the republic was a statement of defiance. During Ali Khamenei’s final years, experts examining likely succession candidates noted the difficulty of choosing his son for a regime that “prides itself on overturning thousands of years of monarchical rule”.
But in the end, the dynastic transfer of power passed without a hitch. “This is not surprising in the sense that all revolutions tend to replace what they destroyed with something very similar,” said Rouzbeh Parsi, a history professor at Sweden’s Lund University. “So, in that sense, going full dynasty is not necessarily surprising. There's also an element of this in Shia theology, where the notion of sacredness and the notion of charisma and leadership goes in succession within the family.”
While his father was in office, Mojtaba Khamenei did not have an official government position. But his years of work at the supreme leader’s Beyt office as a sort of aide-de-camp, personal assistant and confidant to his father put him at the centre of political, economic and, most importantly, security networks in Iran.
Iran’s supreme leader is the ultimate authority over all branches of government and head of a security establishment that includes the army, navy, intelligence institutions and, above all, the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a parallel armed force that includes allied organisations such as the Basij militia.
The IRGC also wields economic clout, accounting for nearly 25% of the Iranian economy, according to some estimates.
Khamenei was believed to be his octogenarian father’s right-hand man for several years, fueling speculation that the son was effectively managing the day-to-day running of the state.
Security links, economic assets, religious credentials
Born in 1969 in the city of Mashhad, Khamenei fought in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war with an IRGC division, several of whom ascended to powerful intelligence positions within the force, cementing his links within an organisation that grew to become the country’s most influential institution.
After his father became supreme leader in 1989, he had access to the billions of dollars and business assets spread across Iran's many bonyads, or foundations funded from state industries and other wealth once held by the former shah.
During his father’s rule, Khamenei used his proximity to the leadership to amass his own power, according to US and Israeli sources. US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in the late 2000s suggested that he served as his father’s “principal gatekeeper” and had been forming his own power base within the country.
At a time of crisis, Khamenei’s familiarity with the ropes of administration and knowledge of the shadowy workings of the IRGC – also known as “the Guards” – was viewed as an asset, according to experts.
Khamenei also takes over the position of the Islamic Republic’s spiritual leader with the required religious credentials, unlike his father, who was a midlevel cleric when he replaced Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic in 1989.
Khamenei’s clerical studies include instruction in a respected seminary in the holy city of Qom. It was followed by more than a decade of teaching dars-e kharej — the highest level of seminary instruction in Shiite Islamic jurisprudence. He reached the clerical rank of ayatollah in 2022, according to the Qom seminary’s news agency.
This puts him in a secure position in Iran’s power circles, according to experts. “We have to remember that his father needed a decade or so to shore up his own credibility and his own ability to run the system. Now, Mojtaba comes with stronger cards in terms of his connections, but also a weaker position in that he's going to be more dependent on those groups, most likely the Revolutionary Guards,” said Parsi.
‘Replacing the Taliban with the Taliban’
The second of Ali Khamenei’s six children, the new supreme leader was believed to be extremely close to his father. The 56-year-old cleric takes over the post a week after his father, his mother Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, his wife Zahra Adel and one of his sons was killed in the US-Israeli strikes, according to the Iranian government.
The loss is unlikely to see him leaning towards a diplomatic solution to end the current conflict. It also dashes hopes of a reformist faction taking over or influencing the office of the supreme leader.
“I think for the moment, they're all united in that they see an existential threat in the Israeli and American war, and that this is something they need to deal with first,” said Parsi.
Iran’s proxies in the region, including the Houthis in Yemen and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have also fallen in line, pledging allegiance to the new leader.
Across the Persian Gulf, Iranian attacks on the oil-rich Gulf monarchies in retaliation for the US-Israeli strikes have also strengthened the Islamic regime’s ability to disrupt global oil shipments, which in turn determine the power balance in the region, according to some experts.
“What Iran has done is increase the pressure on the Americans, that the whole global system, that the Americans, in a sense, underwrite,” said Parsi. “The Iranians are able to influence what is happening and are making it very difficult for the Americans to contain this conflict to just one country, so the rest of the world would go about their business. That is not the way things are going. The fact that the Americans don't seem to have a clear strategy of what they want with this war, just makes it easier for the Iranians to, in a sense, play this game.”
Last week, Trump declared that he wanted a say in the appointment of Iran’s new leader. That was not to be. As supreme leader, Khamenei, like his father, is now high in the sights of US-Israeli decapitation strikes. But the Islamic regime has delivered its message of continuity no matter the decimation of top personnel.
For some experts, Iran’s appointment of a newer version of an old leader underscores the failure of the US in the region, which was in stark focus during the 2021 Taliban takeover in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Several Iran experts took to social media on Monday to elaborate the point. “The U.S. spent 20 years and trillions of dollars replacing the Taliban with the Taliban,” said Iranian political analyst Ali Alizadeh on X. “Trump replaced Ayatollah Khamenei with Ayatollah Khamenei in just 9 days. The most efficient U.S. president ever,” he noted wryly.
By: Leela JACINTO
A woman poses with a picture of Iran's new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei and his late father Ali Khamenei at a rally in in central Tehran on March 9, 2026. © Atta Kenaré, AFP
After more than a week of massive US and Israeli bombardments, around 1,200 reported Iranian deaths, seven fallen US soldiers, damaged infrastructure, skyrocketing oil prices, blocked ships and grounded flights, Iran got the new leader that everyone expected for years.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been named Iran’s new supreme leader as the Islamic regime faces an existential crisis. The message from the Assembly of Experts, the body empowered to appoint the new leader, was clear to Iran and the world. The Velayat-e-Faqih, the Shiite political doctrine underpinning Iran’s Islamic Republic, would continue, the resistance would not be cowed, and the change that many Iranians longed for was nowhere near.
Khamenei was appointed the new leader barely a week after Iranian authorities confirmed the death of his 86-year-old father in the initial round of US-Israeli strikes. Amid rumours about the logistical difficulties of holding a vote and speculation over whether the war could strengthen a reformist voice, the decision was swift and unambiguous.
After more than a week of massive US and Israeli bombardments, around 1,200 reported Iranian deaths, seven fallen US soldiers, damaged infrastructure, skyrocketing oil prices, blocked ships and grounded flights, Iran got the new leader that everyone expected for years.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been named Iran’s new supreme leader as the Islamic regime faces an existential crisis. The message from the Assembly of Experts, the body empowered to appoint the new leader, was clear to Iran and the world. The Velayat-e-Faqih, the Shiite political doctrine underpinning Iran’s Islamic Republic, would continue, the resistance would not be cowed, and the change that many Iranians longed for was nowhere near.
Khamenei was appointed the new leader barely a week after Iranian authorities confirmed the death of his 86-year-old father in the initial round of US-Israeli strikes. Amid rumours about the logistical difficulties of holding a vote and speculation over whether the war could strengthen a reformist voice, the decision was swift and unambiguous.
Trump trying to gauge whether new ayatollah is 'a leader he can work with'
Imagen de archivo de Mojtaba Jamenei, durante su participación en el mitin anual de las milicias Quds. Teherán, 31 de mayo de 2019. AP - Vahid Salemi
10:58
10:58
“The message is very clear. It's a message of resoluteness sent by the Iranian government,” said FRANCE 24’s Siavosh Ghazi, reporting from Tehran the morning after the announcement. “The members of the Assembly of Experts have stated that he is continuing his father’s legacy…In effect, the result of the war that was started by [US President] Donald Trump and [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu is to replace an 86-year-old with a 56-year-old. So, nothing changes, and the message is: We will stay the course – and continue to resist the Americans and the Israelis.”
To prove the point, Iranian state media followed up the announcement, which was broadcast Monday around 1am local time, with a report of a new attack on Israel. “Iran fired a first wave of missiles under Ayatollah Sayyid Mojtaba Khamenei toward [the Palestinian] occupied territories,” declared state radio stations while state TV aired a photograph of a projectile bearing the slogan, "At Your Command, Sayyid Mojtaba", using an Islamic honorific.
Iran’s oil-rich Gulf neighbours also received a business-as-usual message hours later, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar reporting new explosions and attacks on Monday. The Asian markets, opening for a new week of trading, reflected the economic strains of Iran’s blockage of the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported. Oil prices soared to a historic high of $120 per barrel on Monday morning before falling in a whiplash trading session.
‘Going full dynasty’
Nearly half a century after the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Pahlavi monarchy, the appointment of another Khamenei as leader of the republic was a statement of defiance. During Ali Khamenei’s final years, experts examining likely succession candidates noted the difficulty of choosing his son for a regime that “prides itself on overturning thousands of years of monarchical rule”.
But in the end, the dynastic transfer of power passed without a hitch. “This is not surprising in the sense that all revolutions tend to replace what they destroyed with something very similar,” said Rouzbeh Parsi, a history professor at Sweden’s Lund University. “So, in that sense, going full dynasty is not necessarily surprising. There's also an element of this in Shia theology, where the notion of sacredness and the notion of charisma and leadership goes in succession within the family.”
Iran goes 'full dynasty' © France 24
04:59
04:59
While his father was in office, Mojtaba Khamenei did not have an official government position. But his years of work at the supreme leader’s Beyt office as a sort of aide-de-camp, personal assistant and confidant to his father put him at the centre of political, economic and, most importantly, security networks in Iran.
Iran’s supreme leader is the ultimate authority over all branches of government and head of a security establishment that includes the army, navy, intelligence institutions and, above all, the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a parallel armed force that includes allied organisations such as the Basij militia.
The IRGC also wields economic clout, accounting for nearly 25% of the Iranian economy, according to some estimates.
Khamenei was believed to be his octogenarian father’s right-hand man for several years, fueling speculation that the son was effectively managing the day-to-day running of the state.
Security links, economic assets, religious credentials
Born in 1969 in the city of Mashhad, Khamenei fought in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war with an IRGC division, several of whom ascended to powerful intelligence positions within the force, cementing his links within an organisation that grew to become the country’s most influential institution.
After his father became supreme leader in 1989, he had access to the billions of dollars and business assets spread across Iran's many bonyads, or foundations funded from state industries and other wealth once held by the former shah.
During his father’s rule, Khamenei used his proximity to the leadership to amass his own power, according to US and Israeli sources. US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in the late 2000s suggested that he served as his father’s “principal gatekeeper” and had been forming his own power base within the country.
At a time of crisis, Khamenei’s familiarity with the ropes of administration and knowledge of the shadowy workings of the IRGC – also known as “the Guards” – was viewed as an asset, according to experts.
Khamenei also takes over the position of the Islamic Republic’s spiritual leader with the required religious credentials, unlike his father, who was a midlevel cleric when he replaced Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic in 1989.
Khamenei’s clerical studies include instruction in a respected seminary in the holy city of Qom. It was followed by more than a decade of teaching dars-e kharej — the highest level of seminary instruction in Shiite Islamic jurisprudence. He reached the clerical rank of ayatollah in 2022, according to the Qom seminary’s news agency.
This puts him in a secure position in Iran’s power circles, according to experts. “We have to remember that his father needed a decade or so to shore up his own credibility and his own ability to run the system. Now, Mojtaba comes with stronger cards in terms of his connections, but also a weaker position in that he's going to be more dependent on those groups, most likely the Revolutionary Guards,” said Parsi.
‘Replacing the Taliban with the Taliban’
The second of Ali Khamenei’s six children, the new supreme leader was believed to be extremely close to his father. The 56-year-old cleric takes over the post a week after his father, his mother Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, his wife Zahra Adel and one of his sons was killed in the US-Israeli strikes, according to the Iranian government.
The loss is unlikely to see him leaning towards a diplomatic solution to end the current conflict. It also dashes hopes of a reformist faction taking over or influencing the office of the supreme leader.
“I think for the moment, they're all united in that they see an existential threat in the Israeli and American war, and that this is something they need to deal with first,” said Parsi.
Iran’s proxies in the region, including the Houthis in Yemen and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have also fallen in line, pledging allegiance to the new leader.
Across the Persian Gulf, Iranian attacks on the oil-rich Gulf monarchies in retaliation for the US-Israeli strikes have also strengthened the Islamic regime’s ability to disrupt global oil shipments, which in turn determine the power balance in the region, according to some experts.
“What Iran has done is increase the pressure on the Americans, that the whole global system, that the Americans, in a sense, underwrite,” said Parsi. “The Iranians are able to influence what is happening and are making it very difficult for the Americans to contain this conflict to just one country, so the rest of the world would go about their business. That is not the way things are going. The fact that the Americans don't seem to have a clear strategy of what they want with this war, just makes it easier for the Iranians to, in a sense, play this game.”
Last week, Trump declared that he wanted a say in the appointment of Iran’s new leader. That was not to be. As supreme leader, Khamenei, like his father, is now high in the sights of US-Israeli decapitation strikes. But the Islamic regime has delivered its message of continuity no matter the decimation of top personnel.
For some experts, Iran’s appointment of a newer version of an old leader underscores the failure of the US in the region, which was in stark focus during the 2021 Taliban takeover in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Several Iran experts took to social media on Monday to elaborate the point. “The U.S. spent 20 years and trillions of dollars replacing the Taliban with the Taliban,” said Iranian political analyst Ali Alizadeh on X. “Trump replaced Ayatollah Khamenei with Ayatollah Khamenei in just 9 days. The most efficient U.S. president ever,” he noted wryly.
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