Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, suffered a fractured foot and different minor accidents on the first day of the US and Israel’s bombardment marketing campaign, a supply aware of the scenario informed NCS.
In addition to his injured foot, Khamenei, 56, obtained a bruise round his left eye, in addition to minor lacerations to his face, the supply stated.
An Israeli supply beforehand informed NCS that Khamenei was injured in an assassination try final week, and rumors of his accidents have swirled for days.
Iran’s ambassador to Cyprus, Alireza Salarian, told the Guardian newspaper on Wednesday that Khamenei was injured in the identical airstrike that killed his father, the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, together with 5 different members of the household.
Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public nor heard from within the days for the reason that announcement of his appointment to the nation’s highest workplace, a reality defined by his accidents, Salarian stated.
“I don’t think he is comfortable (in any condition) to give a speech,” Salarian informed the Guardian.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s son Yousef stated early Wednesday that he had heard Khamenei was injured, telling the state-affiliated Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) that the brand new supreme leader is “safe and there are no concerns.”
Iranian state media and propaganda networks have made intensive use of the little archival footage that exists of Mojtaba Khamenei within the meantime, filling in any gaps of footage with AI-generated photographs.
When Iran’s Assembly of Experts introduced that he had been chosen to switch his father, state media launched a four-minute documentary clip recounting his life: modest origins, seminary research within the holy metropolis of Qom, his time preventing within the Iran-Iraq war as a youngster and, lastly, his new function as inheritor to his “martyred” father.
While Mojtaba Khamenei stored a low profile earlier than changing into probably the most highly effective individual in Iran, he was nonetheless a central determine within the huge community of affect his that father, Ali Khamenei, cultivated throughout his decades-long tenure as supreme leader. In 2021, pictures have been even revealed on social media exhibiting Iranians passing out posters selling Mojtaba Khamenei as an inheritor to his father.
The new supreme leader, whereas not a high-ranking cleric, is a detailed affiliate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC) and the regime’s financial elite. Observers consider he’s simply as, if no more, hard-line as his father was.
Before Mojtaba Khamenei’s affirmation as supreme leader, Maha Yahya, director of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center, informed NCS that his new function may very well be seen as a message from the regime to the United States and Israel that navy strain is “not going to get us to shift position.”
The youthful Khamenei was even a spotlight of protesters’ rage throughout demonstrations in opposition to the end result of the 2009 Iranian elections, wherein the conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected to a second time period.
Many within the nation consider Khamenei had a hand within the extensively disputed ultimate outcomes. Before the rebellion was crushed and Iran’s home opposition obliterated, protesters chanted in Farsi, “Mojtaba bemiri Rahbari ro Nabini,” or “Mojtaba may you die so you don’t assume the leadership role.”
Though a little-known determine outdoors Iran till he changed his father, Khamenei had beforehand obtained scrutiny from US officers. In 2019, the US Treasury sanctioned Khamenei for allegedly working carefully with the IRGC “to advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.”
US President Donald Trump, for his half, has expressed disapproval of Iran’s new supreme leader, calling him an “unacceptable” alternative.
NCS’s Oren Liebermann and Sana Noor Haq contributed to this report.