Listen to this article
Average 4 minutes
The audio version of this article was created by AI-based technology. It can be mispronounced. We are working with our partners to continuously review and improve the results.
Iran on Monday nominated Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, as supreme leader, signaling that hardliners are still in power in Tehran more than a week into its conflicts with the United States and Israel.
Mojtaba’s father, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in one of the first strikes launched against Iran more than a week ago. His ascension will likely not go down well with US President Donald Trump, who previously called him “unacceptable” for the role.
Here is what we know about Mojtaba Khamenei.
There is no formal government role
Khamenei was born in 1969 in the city of Mashhad, Iran, and grew up as his father helped lead the opposition to the Shah. As a teenager, he served in the Iran-Iraq war.
Khamenei studied under religious conservatives in the seminaries of Qom, Iran’s center of Shia religious education, and holds the clerical position of hojjitoleslam.
He has never held an official position in the government of the Islamic Republic, despite being widely seen as his father’s gatekeeper. He has been seen in gatherings of the faithful, but rarely speaks in public.
His role has long been a source of controversy in Iran, with critics rejecting any hint of royal politics in the country that overthrew a US-backed king in 1979.
Critics say Khamenei lacks the clerical credentials to be a supreme leader – hojjatoleslam is a notch below the rank of ayatollah, a position held by his father and Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic republic.
Relations with the IRGC, the office of the supreme leader
His close relationship with the top clerics and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which controls Iran’s security forces and its economy, gives him power over all political and coercive security institutions.
Kasra Aarabi, head of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran, a US-based policy group, said Khamenei has a “strong constituency and support” within the IRGC and the regime’s small supporters.
Aarabi said Khamenei gained a lot of influence acting as a gatekeeper from his father, describing him as a “little supreme leader.”
The Hardliner
Khamenei opposes reformers who want to engage with the West, which has long sought to curb Iran’s nuclear program.
Alan Eyre, a former US diplomat and Iran expert, said Khamenei is “harder than his father,” while Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said he would follow “the same playbook as his father.”
“It is a great shame that the United States has undertaken an operation of this scale, risked a great deal, and ended up killing an 86-year-old man, replacing him with his strong son,” said Vatanka.
Khamenei is believed to be behind the emergence of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected president in 2005.
Khamenei’s wife, who was killed in Saturday’s airstrikes, was the daughter of a popular hardliner, former parliament speaker Gholamali Haddad Adel.
“He’s going to have a lot of revenge,” Eyre said.
Approved by Washington
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Khamenei in 2019, saying he represents the supreme leader “in an official capacity even though he has never been appointed or appointed to a government position” other than working in his father’s office.
Its website said Ali Khamenei transferred some of his duties to Mojtaba, who he said worked closely with the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force and the Basij, a religious force affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, “to further his father’s destabilizing ambitions and oppressive domestic goals.”
Unpopularity with the protesters
Khamenei was the focus of criticism from protesters during the unrest over the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022, after the young woman was arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.
He is seen as a powerful force over Iran’s security services, which have suppressed several waves of protests in recent years.
