Mojtaba Khamenei named Iran’s new supreme leader

Mar 9, 2026 at 12:08 PM

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Lanka Leader

Iran’s Assembly of Experts has selected Mojtaba Khamenei as the country’s next supreme leader following the death of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ali Khamenei, who led Iran since 1989, was killed during the first wave of U.S.–Israeli airstrikes on Tehran on February 28. The Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for appointing the country’s supreme leader, announced Monday that Mojtaba Khamenei had been chosen after what it described as “precise and extensive deliberations.”

The assembly called on the Iranian public, as well as religious scholars and academics, to pledge allegiance to the new leader, who will guide the Islamic Republic’s political and religious system established after the 1979 revolution.

Born in 1969, Mojtaba Khamenei is the second of six children of the late leader. He volunteered during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s and later pursued religious studies in the holy city of Qom, a major center of Shia Islamic scholarship.

Several members of his family, including his sister, were reportedly killed in the same airstrike that killed his father. Israeli media reports said Mojtaba Khamenei was also wounded in the attack.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has pledged loyalty to the new supreme leader through its media outlet Sepah.

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, thanked the Assembly of Experts for convening despite ongoing airstrikes, including a strike last week on the assembly’s headquarters in Qom. He said the leadership transition took place in an orderly manner despite what he described as attempts by Iran’s enemies to create political deadlock after Ali Khamenei’s death.

The leadership change comes as tensions with Washington remain high. U.S. President Donald Trump has said the war with Iran would only end if Tehran agrees to unconditional surrender.