Iran’s new supreme leader has released a statement amid reports claiming he may be dead, or severely disfigured.
It included another warning to Washington, whilst paying tribute to slain security official Ali Larijani.
« It is with great sorrow that I received the painful news of the martyrdom of Mr. Dr. Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the Leader’s representative on that council, as well as his distinguished son and some of his colleagues, » Khamenei said in a statement on Wednesday.
Khamenei continued to say that Larijani « a learned, far-sighted, intelligent, and committed individual with diverse experiences in various political, military, security, cultural, and managerial arenas. »
« The enemies of Islam should know that shedding this blood only makes the mighty tree of the Islamic system stronger, and of course, every drop of blood has its price, which the murderous killers of these martyrs will soon have to pay, » he added.
This marks the second occasion he has issued a statement in recent days following reports emerging that he had lost a leg and was in a coma. This time, he did not appear on camera, as was the case with a hastily written message read by a news anchor on Iranian TV last week.
It’s highly likely that Khamenei is in hiding at a secret location to evade assassination attempts. His father, former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a significant attack by Israel and the United States at the onset of the war.
Mojtaba Khamenei has been perceived as an even stricter hard-liner than his father. The prospect of him becoming the next supreme leader was viewed as a potential return to Iran’s past hereditary monarchy but with a theocratic twist.
Those concerns seemed to vanish with the airstrikes on Tehran that toppled Iran’s top leadership, strikes that injured Mojtaba Khamenei and claimed the lives of his father and wife.
Before his appointment, Khamenei had held a role similar to that of Ahmad Khomeini, a son of Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini – « a combination of aide-de-camp, confidant, gatekeeper and power broker, » according to United Against Nuclear Iran, a U.S.-based pressure group.
The younger Khamenei assumed the role of supreme leader with his military at war but also with a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that could be used to construct a nuclear weapon.
Born in 1969 in the city of Mashhad, roughly 10 years before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that would transform Iran, Khamenei grew up whilst his father campaigned against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
An official biography of Ali Khamenei recounts an incident when the shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, invaded their home and assaulted the cleric. Awoken afterwards, Mojtaba and the rest of Khamenei’s children were informed their father was going on holiday.
« But I told them, ‘There is no need to lie.’ I told them the truth, » the elder Khamenei was quoted as saying.
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