Iran picks Khamenei’s son as next supreme leader, Fars says

The son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will become Iran’s next supreme leader, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency announced, taking over after his father was killed in an attack by the US and Israel.

Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, is the third person to lead the Islamic Republic and the first example of hereditary succession since the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy in the 1979 revolution.

Iran’s Assembly of Experts elected the country’s next supreme leader in a “decisive vote,” according to Fars. The vote took place hours before the result was made public. 

On Sunday, Iran kept up attacks on its neighbors during the ninth day of the war in the Middle East, hitting a water plant in Bahrain.

The younger Khamenei was born in the holy city of Mashhad in Iran’s northeast in 1969 as the family’s second-oldest son. He fought briefly in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war that consolidated his father’s rise to power and became a cleric, studying at Iran’s main religious seminary city of Qom, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

He keeps a relatively low public profile, but is seen as close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the military force that leads Iran’s missile program and regional alliances with militias, and which has swelled to control as much as 40% of Iran’s economy. 

During alleged interference in the country’s 2009 elections that sparked widespread street protests, the opposition accused Mojtaba of being involved.

Bloomberg reported in January that he oversees a sprawling investment empire stretching from Tehran to Dubai and Frankfurt. He didn’t respond to requests for comment at the time.

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