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Where is Mojtaba Khamenei? Trump says Iran's leader could be ‘badly disfigured or dead’
Trump said he was unsure whether Mojtaba Khamenei was alive, adding that the United States did not know who it could engage with in Tehran.
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that it remained uncertain if Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei was alive, following reports that he may have been hurt in an air strike. His remarks came days after Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said the leader was believed to have been injured in a strike.
After Iran’s former leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening phase of the war, Tehran named his son Mojtaba as his successor. Notably, the new leader has not appeared in public since the start of the war. Follow Iran-US war live updates here.
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What Trump said on Mojataba Khamenei
Trump said he was unsure whether Mojtaba Khamenei was alive, adding that the United States did not know who it could engage with in Tehran.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, the US president said, “We don't know... if he's dead or not. I will say that nobody has seen him, which is unusual”.
"A lot of people are saying that he's badly disfigured. They're saying that he lost his leg, one leg, and he's, you know, been hurt very badly. Other people are saying he's dead. Nobody's saying he's 100 percent healthy. You know he hasn't spoken,” he said.
"We don't know who we're dealing with" in Iran, Trump added. "We don't know who their leader is."
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Where is Mojtaba Khamenei?
One key reason behind the 56-year-old leader staying away from public view or cameras is that he was hurt in a strike by the US and Israel on the first day of the war, The New York Times reported, quoting three Iranian officials.
A report by The Telegraph also said that Mazaher Hosseini, who headed protocol in the late leader’s office, told officials that Mojtaba had been inside the building with his father shortly before the strike but stepped out just moments before missiles hit and killed the former leader.
Mojtaba survived the attack and suffered a minor leg injury. However, his wife, identified as Haddad, was killed in the strike, the report added.
In another reference to his condition, Iran’s state news agency IRNA described him as a “wounded war veteran”.
Notably, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi has rejected claims about the health of the country’s new supreme leader, saying there are no concerns over his condition.
With inputs from agencies
