Mojtaba Khamenei

Sayyid Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei is the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran since March 2026. He was born on September 8, 1969, in the city of Mashhad, Iran, as the second son of Ali Khamenei, the former Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He was raised in a religious‑spiritual family and received his primary education at a School in Tehran. After finishing high school, he began religious studies at the city of Qom, where he studied under prominent teachers, including his father and other religious scholars. During his years of study, he deeply studied Islamic jurisprudence and philosophy. In the 1980s, upon completing his studies, he joined units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, served in the Iran–Iraq War, and gained combat experience. He then continued his religious and political activities, and from 2008 he served as an official representative of the Supreme Leader’s office, a role in which he was seen as a central coordinator of religious, security, and governmental activities on behalf of his father, including connections to intelligence apparatus and Basij organization. Over the years, it was reported that he had broad influence over the suppression of demonstrations and maintained close ties with the regime’s internal security forces. On March 8, 2026, following the death of his father Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei was elected by the Assembly of Experts to be the third Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. After his appointment, there were reports that he was injured in an Israeli attack.