Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been appointed as Iran’s new Supreme Leader, according to media reports from Tehran.
The cleric and political figure was effectively the candidate imposed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to Iran International. Even before 2019, he had been considered a possible candidate for the presidency and was widely described as a conservative figure loyal to the regime, with strong ties to Iran’s security forces.
How the successor is chosen
The selection of the successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is explicitly provided for under Iran’s constitution and falls under the authority of the Assembly of Experts, the same body that appointed him as Supreme Leader in 1989.
Under the constitution, the successor must be chosen by the Assembly of Experts, formally known as the Assembly of Leadership Experts.
The body consists of 88 clerics who are formally elected by the public every eight years. In practice, however, only clerics considered fully loyal to the Islamic Republic are permitted to stand as candidates.
Following the recent Israeli strikes, the Assembly of Experts reportedly convened online to discuss the succession. Iranian state media reported that US-Israeli raids struck the assembly’s complex in Tehran on Monday.
On Tuesday, Israeli military spokesperson Effie Defrin confirmed that a strike had targeted the complex in Qom. According to the Fars news agency, the assembly was not holding a session inside the building at the time of the attack.
Background of Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei
Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei was born in Mashhad in 1969. During his early school years he spent seven years in the cities of Sardasht and Mahabad in northwestern Iran.
After graduating from high school, he pursued studies in theology. His first teachers included his father and Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi.
In 1999 he moved to Qom to continue his religious education and pursue a clerical career. Among his teachers there were Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani and Mohammad Bagher Kharazi.
According to reporting by The Guardian and the French newspaper Libération, he is believed to control significant financial assets and wealth. This claim has been denied by the Assembly of the Forces of the Imam’s Line, an Iranian political group led by his uncle Hadi Khamenei.
He married Zahra Haddad-Adel in 2004 and the couple welcomed their first child in 2007.
Israeli strike kills senior Iranian commander
Meanwhile, the Israeli military announced that it had killed a senior Iranian commander in Tehran responsible for operations in Lebanon.
In a statement, the Israeli army said its air force struck and eliminated Daoud Ali Zadeh, the interim commander of the Lebanese division of Iran’s Quds Force, the unit of the Revolutionary Guards responsible for Iran’s overseas operations.
The statement described him as the most senior Iranian commander overseeing operations in Lebanon.
Earlier, the Israeli military had said it targeted a high-ranking Iranian commander in Tehran during the fourth day of the war that erupted in the Middle East following the joint Israeli and US attack on Iran.