Iran’s Assembly of Experts said Sunday it had chosen Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the Islamic Republic’s next supreme leader, following Ali Khamenei’s reported killing in an Israeli strike on February 28 amid an escalating conflict involving Israel and the United States.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body charged with selecting the country’s supreme leader, said in a statement on Sunday that it had selected Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
According to the statement, the selection was made by a “decisive vote,” and the assembly urged Iranians — particularly “elites and intellectuals of the seminaries and universities” — to support the new leader. Mojtaba Khamenei is 56, according to reporting by multiple outlets.
Ali Khamenei became supreme leader in 1989 after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic established after the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran’s shah. In recent days, several outlets have reported that Ali Khamenei was killed on February 28, 2026, at the outset of a widening conflict marked by U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets.
Several reports have also said Mojtaba Khamenei’s wife was killed in the same strike that killed his father, though independent confirmation remains limited.
Mojtaba Khamenei has long been viewed by analysts and Iranian opposition-linked media as a potential successor, despite having never held elected office or a senior government post. He is widely described as a mid-ranking cleric with influence inside Iran’s power structure and close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the United States has designated a foreign terrorist organization.
In November 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Mojtaba Khamenei, saying he had represented the supreme leader “in an official capacity” despite not being elected or formally appointed to a government position beyond work in his father’s office. The Treasury said he worked closely with the IRGC’s Quds Force and the Basij.
U.S. President Donald Trump commented publicly on the succession before the announcement, saying the next supreme leader “is not going to last long” without U.S. approval and adding, “He’s going to have to get approval from us.” In a March 5 interview with Axios, Trump called Mojtaba Khamenei “a lightweight” and said, “Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.”
Israel also issued warnings aimed at those involved in selecting Iran’s next leader. On Sunday, the Israeli military’s Farsi-language account on X posted: “We want to tell you that the hand of the State of Israel will continue to pursue every successor and every person who seeks to appoint a successor,” adding that it would “not hesitate to target” those participating.
Separately, The Daily Wire cited a New York Post report that attributed to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks an allegation that Mojtaba Khamenei sought medical treatment in the United Kingdom for impotence. The claim has not been substantiated by official records or other major independent reporting, and details surrounding the allegation remain unclear.
