The bombs are showing no signs of letting up. And Iran already needs a new supreme leader. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is reportedly dead. Iran is wasting no time choosing a successor.
Part of the Iranian media has reported that the choice is Mojtaba Khamenei, the late leader’s son. He is reportedly all set to take power as fighting spreads and strikes continue to tear through infrastructure in Tehran and beyond.
Mojtaba is 56. He nearly didn’t make it to this moment. Reports say he survived the strike that killed his father only because he wasn’t there. But the attack still took nearly everything from him. His mother, his wife, and one of his sisters were all killed.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the 88-member clerical body responsible for selecting the country’s supreme leader, called on Iranians to maintain unity and pledge support to Mojtaba Khamenei.
In a statement, the assembly said he had been chosen through a decisive vote and urged all Iranians, especially elites and intellectuals of seminaries and universities, to pledge allegiance to the leadership and maintain unity.
Iran also indicated on Sunday that Mojtaba had been chosen as his father’s successor as Israel struck fuel depots in Tehran overnight and the conflict widened after Bahrain said an Iranian attack had damaged one of its desalination plants.
Ayatollah Hosseinali Eshkevari, a member of the clerical council tasked with electing a new leader, said in a video published in Iranian media that the name of Khamenei would continue and that the vote had been cast and would be announced soon, though he did not provide further details.
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Washington should have a say in the selection and told ABC News that if the candidate did not get approval from the United States he would not last long.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also backtracked from conciliatory comments he had made a day earlier when he apologised for attacks on Gulf neighbours’ soil. Iranian hardliners quickly contradicted him and said the war strategy would not change. Pezeshkian said that the more pressure imposed on Iran, the stronger its response would naturally be, adding that Iran would not bow easily in the face of bullying, oppression or aggression and never had.
As fighting escalated on the ninth day of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran, thick black smoke hung over Tehran on Sunday following strikes on oil storage facilities.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the large-scale attack marked a dangerous new phase of the conflict and amounted to a war crime, stating on social media that by targeting fuel depots the aggressors were releasing hazardous materials and toxic substances into the air.
An Israeli military spokesman told reporters that the depots were used to fuel Iran’s war.
Material damage
Bahrain said on Sunday that an Iranian drone attack had caused material damage to a desalination plant, although water supplies were not disrupted. It was the first time an Arab country had said Iran targeted a desalination facility during the conflict.
Mojtaba Khamenei has never run for office or faced a public vote but has for decades been an influential figure within the inner circle of the previous supreme leader, cultivating deep ties with the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
In recent years he had increasingly been seen as a leading potential replacement for his father, who served nearly eight years as president and then held absolute power for 36 years before being killed in attacks on his compound in Tehran on Saturday, February 28.
His rise is seen as a sign that hardline factions within Iran’s establishment retain influence and may signal little appetite within the government for negotiations or a deal in the near term.
Sensitive topic
Mojtaba Khamenei has never publicly discussed the issue of succession, which remains a sensitive topic since his elevation would effectively create a dynasty reminiscent of the Pahlavi monarchy before the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Instead he has largely maintained a low profile, avoiding public lectures, Friday sermons or political addresses. Many Iranians have never heard his voice despite long being aware that he was an emerging figure within the theocratic establishment.
For nearly two decades, both domestic and foreign-based opponents have linked his name to the violent suppression of Iranian protesters.
Iran’s reformist camp first accused him of manipulating elections and using the IRGC’s Basij force to crack down on peaceful protesters during the Green Movement of 2009, which erupted after populist politician Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected president in a controversial vote followed by a crackdown on reformist leaders and their supporters.
Basij forces have since been central to the establishment’s response to multiple waves of nationwide protests, most notably two months ago when the United Nations and international human rights organisations said state forces killed thousands of people, mostly during the nights of January 8 and 9.
The late supreme leader and the establishment blamed terrorists and rioters armed, trained and funded by the United States and Israel for the unprecedented killings, as they had done during previous rounds of anti-establishment protests.
Mojtaba Khamenei began forming close ties with the IRGC during his younger years while serving in the Habib Battalion during several operations in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Several of his comrades, including clerics, later obtained senior positions in the security and intelligence apparatus of the nascent Islamic Republic.
He is under US and Western sanctions and, according to reports in Western media outlets, has amassed an economic empire involving assets in several countries. His name is not believed to appear in any of the alleged transactions, but reports said he had moved billions of dollars over the years through a network of insiders and associates linked to the Iranian establishment.
Ali Ansari, the link
Bloomberg linked him to Ali Ansari, who came under scrutiny late last year after his Bank Ayandeh was forcibly dissolved by the state after going bankrupt because it had handed out loans to unnamed insiders and accumulated huge debts. The bank’s dissolution contributed to Iran’s already rampant inflation rising further, leaving many Iranians poorer as the losses were partly covered using public funds.
Neither Khamenei nor Ansari has publicly responded to the reported links and allegations, which also include the purchase of luxury property in European countries.
His religious credentials have also been debated because he is a hojatoleslam, a mid-level cleric, rather than an ayatollah. However, his father was also not an ayatollah when he became leader in 1989, and the law was amended at the time to accommodate him. A similar compromise could also be made for Mojtaba.
It remains unclear when or how Iran will formally announce new leadership arrangements as the country once again imposes a nationwide internet blackout and restrictions on the flow of information while the intense bombing campaign by the United States and Israel continues.
Also Read: TV Claims Iran’s New Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei Is Wounded https://www.vibesofindia.com/tv-claims-irans-new-supreme-leader-mojtaba-khamenei-is-wounded/
