Iran’s Assembly of Experts names Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader amid war

Iran’s Assembly of Experts has named Mojtaba Khamenei as the country’s new supreme leader, state media announced early Monday local time, vesting him with central authority over the war effort as Israeli and U.S. strikes continue to batter the country. The selection, made by the 88-member clerical body tasked with choosing the nation’s top religious authority, follows the February 28 strike that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with several members of the elder Khamenei’s household.

The Assembly’s statement urged Iranians, especially “the elites and intellectuals of the seminaries and universities,” to “pledge allegiance to the leadership and maintain unity,” language broadcast on state channels as programming shifted from somber mourning to revolutionary anthems and scenes of celebratory crowds. An Assembly member, Hosseinali Eshkevari, said, “the issue of determining the leadership… has been completed. The name of Khamenei will continue. The vote has been cast and I hope that it will be announced by the authorities. There is no need to worry.”

Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, is a secretive figure who has never been elected to public office, but for decades operated inside the inner circle of his father’s court and cultivated deep ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. His wartime service included fighting in the Iran-Iraq war with the Habib ibn Mazahir Battalion, and his family’s network has long had access to state-linked foundations and business assets. Analysts and senior officials in Tehran say the new leader will have decisive influence over military strategy, with the Revolutionary Guard answering directly to him.

The succession comes amid a widening regional conflict. The February 28 strikes that killed Ayatollah Khamenei have been widely attributed to U.S. and Israeli forces. In the weeks since, U.S. forces have reported casualties: six Army reservists were killed in an attack at a Kuwaiti port on March 1, and the Pentagon announced a seventh service member died after sustaining injuries from an Iranian strike on a Saudi military base. The violence has reverberated in markets and daily life: the average price of gasoline in the United States reached $3.45 a gallon on Sunday, up 16 percent from the week before, according to AAA figures released during the initial shock.

The new leader’s immediate family suffered losses in the strike. Iranian reporting named Mojtaba’s wife, Zahra Haddad Adel, among those killed; state accounts also said his mother and a sister were slain. Mojtaba himself was reportedly not present at the compound and survived the bombing.

International reaction was swift and pointed. President Donald Trump said the United States must be “involved in the appointment” of Iran’s next leader and called the choice of Khamenei’s son “unacceptable,” adding that the U.S. “has been successful in diminishing the Iranian military and regime, and will continue to expand its targets inside Iran.” Domestically, President Masoud Pezeshkian rejected pressure from Washington and Jerusalem, declaring that Iran “will not bow” as hard-liners pushed back against earlier conciliatory remarks toward neighboring Gulf states.

The appointment consolidates a rapid transfer of authority at the apex of Iran’s theocratic system and signals continuity of hard-line governance at a moment of intense external pressure. Key questions remain: the Assembly has not published a full vote tally, Mojtaba’s first public address has not been released, and exact attribution for the February 28 strikes has not been formally confirmed by the governments accused of carrying them.