Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei suffered a broken leg and other minor injuries on the first day of a shelling campaign by the United States and Israel, a person familiar with the situation told CNN.
In addition to the leg injury, Khamenei, 56, suffered bruises around his left eye and minor lacerations on his face, officials said.
Israeli sources previously told CNN that Khamenei was wounded in an assassination attempt last week and that rumors of his injury have been swirling for several days.
Alireza Salarian, Iran’s ambassador to Cyprus, told the Guardian on Wednesday that Khamenei was wounded in the same airstrike that killed his father, the late supreme leader Khamenei, and five other members of his family.
Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public or heard from for several days since his appointment to the country’s highest office was announced, a fact explained by his injuries, Salarian said.
“I don’t think he would be comfortable giving a speech (under any circumstances),” Salarian told the Guardian.
Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian’s son Yousef said early Wednesday that he had heard that Khamenei had been injured, telling the state-run Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) that the new supreme leader was “safe and there are no concerns.”
Iranian state media and propaganda networks have made extensive use of the little archival footage of Mojtaba Khamenei that exists between them, filling gaps in the footage with AI-generated images.
When Iran’s Council of Experts announced that he had been selected to succeed his father, state media released a four-minute documentary about his life. His life span includes humble beginnings, seminary studies in the holy city of Qom, combat in the Iran-Iraq war as a teenager, and finally a new role as successor to his “martyred” father.
Although Mojtaba Khamenei kept a low profile until he became Iran’s most powerful man, he was still a central figure in the vast network of influence that his father, Ali Khamenei, cultivated during his decades-long tenure as supreme leader. In 2021, photos even appeared on social media of Iranians distributing posters promoting Mojtaba Khamenei as his father’s successor.
The new supreme leader is not a senior cleric, but a close ally of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC) and the regime’s economic elite. Observers believe he is as strong as his father, if not more so.
Before Mojtaba Khamenei was confirmed as supreme leader, Maha Yahya, director of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center, told CNN that his new role could be seen as a message from the regime to the United States and Israel that “we cannot change our position” through military pressure.
The young Khamenei was also the focus of protesters’ anger during demonstrations against the results of Iran’s 2009 general election, in which conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected to a second term.
Many in the country believe that Khamenei was involved in the widely disputed final outcome. Before the uprising was put down and the opposition in Iran was destroyed, demonstrators chanted in Persian: “Mojtaba Bemiri Rahbari Ro Navini,” or “Mojtaba dies so that he does not assume the role of leader.”
Khamenei, who was little known outside Iran until he replaced his father, had previously come under intense scrutiny from U.S. officials. In 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Khamenei for allegedly working closely with the Revolutionary Guards “to advance his father’s regional destabilizing ambitions and repressive domestic goals.”
US President Donald Trump has expressed his disapproval of Iran’s new supreme leader, calling it an “unacceptable” choice.
CNN’s Oren Liebermann and Sana Noor Haq contributed to this report.
