March 11 (UPI) — Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was injured in the attack that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other members of his family.
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, hasn’t appeared in video or public since he was named to the position on Sunday, partially because communication could reveal his position, The New York Times reported that three unnamed Iranian officials said. But they also said he was injured on Feb. 28, the first day of the attack by the United States and Israel.
He was alert and hiding at a highly secure location with limited communication, but he suffered injuries, including to his legs, they reported. How badly he was injured is unclear.
Iran’s ambassador to Cyprus Alireza Salarian also confirmed his injury to The Guardian.
His father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in Israeli airstrikes on a leadership compound in Tehran on Feb. 28. His mother Mansour, wife Zahra, teenage son Mohammad Bagher and other Iranian defense officials were also killed.
State TV and news have begun calling him a “wounded war veteran,” The Times reported.
Salarian said the new ayatollah was lucky to survive the strike, which leveled the residence.
“He was also there and he was injured in that bombardment but I haven’t seen that reflected in the foreign news,” he told The Guardian. “I have heard that he was injured in his legs and hand and arm … I think he is in the hospital because he is injured.”
“The [late] supreme leader was killed with his wife, with his daughter, with his son-in-law and with his daughter’s 14-month-old baby,” Salarian said.
“They were inside their house near the presidential office. Top commanders were also killed as they were also invited [for Ramadan]. The supreme leader had four sons and two daughters and actually he lived in the same place where he worked,” Salerian said.
President Donald Trump called Mojtaba Khamenei’s election “an unacceptable choice” and added, “He is not going to last long.”
Israel has also said it will assassinate the new supreme leader, who is believed to be as hardline as his father. Ali Khamenei held the Shia cleric office since 1989, replacing Ruhollah Khomeini, who had held the office since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Salarian told The Guardian that Ali Khamenei didn’t want his son to replace him.
“High-ranking clergymen did ask him but the late supreme leader said ‘no’ because he didn’t want a dynastic system. He was elected. [After the attack] top-ranking clergymen said: ‘This is your job; you have to obey.'”
Salerian also said the attacks took Iran by surprise.
“Nobody believed, expected or predicted the attacks when we had finished a third round of negotiations in Geneva. Trump is a phenomenon. He does not believe in rule of law internationally or even internally in his own country,” the ambassador told The Guardian.
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