Mojtaba Khamenei — the son of slain Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — has been tapped as the regime’s next supreme leader, Iranian state media announced Sunday.
The 56-year-old new leader — who has been dismissed by President Trump as a “lightweight” — was chosen by the nation’s elite clerical panel known as the Assembly of Experts just eight days after his 86-year-old father was killed in US-Israeli strikes on his Tehran compound during Operation Epic Fury.
NurPhoto via Getty Images
Other strikes in the joint military attack also killed around 40 other high-ranking Islamic Republic leaders.
Mojtaba’s wife, Zahra Haddad Adel, who came from a family long associated with the country’s theocracy, was also killed in the strikes as were other family members.
“By a decisive vote, the Assembly of Experts, appointed Ayatollah Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei as the third Leader of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the assembly said in a statement.
While Mojtaba has been the favored successor of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Trump condemned the likely appointment as “unacceptable” for the US and vowed it would not bring an end to the war.
“They are wasting their time,” the president told Axios on Thursday, referring to leaders leaning toward Mojtaba.
“Khamenei’s son is a lightweight.
“Khamenei’s son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran,’’ he said.
Trump insisted nobody will take over Iran unless he’s consulted first, telling ABC News Sunday that a new leader “is not going to last long” without his approval.
Tehran’s new leader will inherit control of the feared IRGC, which has ruled the nation with an iron fist for decades — and a cache of highly enriched uranium that could be used to build a nuclear bomb.
Prior to the vote, the 88-member Assembly of Experts reportedly raised issues over passing the torch to the longtime ayatollah’s son.
Mojtaba has been known for his staunch adherence to his father’s hardline conservatism and anti-Western sentiments that hallmark the Islamic Republic.
His alleged intimacy issues — including reported claims he couldn’t perform with his wife and had to be hospitalized for impotency treatment on four separate occasions — were also thrust into the spotlight as he moved to take his slain father’s throne.
Mojtaba was also reportedly wounded in an Israeli airstrike and has remained in hiding as the US and Israel continue to rain missiles on the Islamic Republic.
It’s not clear if he was with his father in the ayatollah’s compound that was decimated by airstrikes, or if he was targeted in a separate attack on the regime.
The details and extent of his injuries are also unclear.
With Post wires.
