International media outlets including Al Jazeera, BBC and Fox News report on the announcement of Mojtaba Ali Khamenei as Iran’s new supreme leader.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts on Sunday named Mojtaba Khamenei as the country’s new supreme leader after the assassination of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in strikes by the US and Israel on Iran.
Mojtaba has been termed as a discreet figure who offers continuity of his father’s leadership. His appointment has drawn contrasting reactions from Washington and Jerusalem, reflecting differing strategies in responding to Iran’s evolving leadership.
Here is how different international media outlets covered the news:
The mullahs spent 45 years denouncing hereditary dynasties and they just crowned a king. Khamenei junior. The boss’ son. He’s 56, no resume except his last name.
Mojtaba Khamenei has never run for office or been subjected to a public vote, but has long been a highly influential figure in the inner circle of the supreme leader, cultivating deep ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In recent years, Khamenei had increasingly been touted as a potential replacement for his father, who had been in power since 1989. His selection could be a sign that more hardline factions in Iran’s establishment retain power, and could indicate that the government has little desire to agree to a deal or negotiations in the short term as the war enters its second week.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards forced through the choice of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader, seeing him as a more pliant version of his father who would back their hardline policies, bludgeoning aside the concerns of pragmatists, senior Iranian sources said.
Already very powerful, the Guards have gained yet greater sway since the war began and quickly overcame the misgivings of senior political and clerical figures whose opposition to the choice delayed the announcement by hours, the sources said.
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, the second son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is widely viewed as a hard-line figure with close ties to the powerful Revolutionary Guard. Israel has already described him as a potential target, while President Donald Trump had called him “unacceptable”.
Some pro-establishment crowds have taken to the streets to celebrate the appointment of a hardliner close to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
But other Iranians have told the BBC that they believe it will not bring about change.
The 88-member Assembly of Experts did what many Iranians had hoped it would never do: turn the Islamic Republic into a dynasty.
The appointment of the very figure US President Donald Trump had branded “unacceptable” appeared to be a deliberate act of defiance – a signal that Iran’s leadership has no intention of folding to American pressure. Instead, the regime appears to be doubling down on the slain supreme leader’s hardline course.
The younger Khamenei had long been considered a contender, even before an Israeli strike killed his father at the start of the war, and despite never being elected or appointed to a government position.
Iran’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard answers to the supreme leader, and now Khamenei will have the central say in war strategy.
Iran’s selection of Mojtaba Khamenei — a powerful regime insider deeply intertwined with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — to succeed his father as supreme leader cements hard-line theocratic rule in the country and sends a strong message of defiance against President Donald Trump as Iran remains locked in a conflict with the United States and Israel.
Header image: Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of late Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attends a meeting in Tehran, Iran on October 13, 2024. — Reuters/File
