DUBAI: Mojtaba Khamenei has emerged as frontrunner to succeed his late father as Iran’s supreme leader.

The 56-year-old survived the US-Israeli aerial blitz of his country, which claimed the life of his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a host of other senior leaders.

Two Iranian sources told Reuters Mojtaba was not in Tehran during the strike that destroyed the supreme leader’s compound, and also claimed the lives of his wife, another son and a number of senior military and leadership figures.

As fresh explosions rang out in Tehran, plans for a funeral for the elder Khamenei were in doubt. His body had been scheduled to lie in state in a vast Tehran mosque from Wednesday evening, but state media reported the farewell ceremony was postponed.

The Assembly of Experts that will select the new leader is “close to a conclusion” and will announce its decision soon, Assembly member Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami told state TV on Wednesday, without naming the candidates.

Hassan Khomeini, grandson of first supreme leader Imam Khomeini and a champion of the reformist faction sidelined in recent decades, is also said to be in the running.

Mojtaba was born in 1969 in the city of Mashhad and grew up as his father was helping lead the opposition to the Shah. As a young man, he served in the Iran-Iraq war.

Mojtaba studied under religious conservatives in the seminaries of Qom, and holds the honorific title of ‘Hujjat al-Islam’ — a notch below the rank of Ayatollah, like his father.

Critics say Mojtaba lacks the clerical credentials to be supreme leader; he has never held a formal government position, but was widely seen as the gatekeeper to his father. He has also appeared at loyalist rallies, but has rarely spoken in public.

The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Mojtaba in 2019, saying he represented the supreme leader in “an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position” aside from working in his father’s office.

Ayatollah Alireza Arafi has also emerged as a central figure after being appointed to an interim three-member leadership council to manage state affairs alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian and Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, following Khamenei’s assassination.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2026