Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is unconscious and 'unable to be involved in any decision-making' weeks after being gravely wounded in US-Israeli strikes, according to an intelligence memo cited by the Times of London on Tuesday, leaving the question of who is really running Iran at a volatile moment for the region.
The news came after weeks of rumour and speculation about Mojtaba Khamenei's condition following the 28 February attacks that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with much of the family's inner circle. Since then, state media in Tehran has presented the 56‑year‑old cleric as his father's natural heir, insisting he has been issuing orders and directing the country's response to the war through written statements. No live speech, public appearance or video address has accompanied those claims.
According to the memo, based on US and Israeli intelligence and obtained by the Times, Mojtaba Khamenei is being treated in the holy city of Qom, roughly 87 miles south of Tehran, and remains in a 'severe' condition. The assessment states bluntly that he is 'unable to be involved in any decision-making by the regime.' If accurate, it would mean the man officially presented as Iran's supreme leader is effectively incapacitated at the very moment Tehran is threatening sweeping retaliation for his father's death.
The Cloak of Secrecy Around Iran's Leadership
Mojtaba Khamenei has long been a shadowy but powerful figure within Iran's political system. As the second son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he was widely reported to have exercised influence over the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and key clerical networks well before his father's death, though such claims were rarely acknowledged publicly.
When state media announced last month that he had been named the new supreme leader, it formalised what many observers believed had been in the works for years: a hereditary succession in a system that, on paper, is supposed to rest on religious credentials rather than bloodline.
The strikes on 28 February upended that carefully managed transition. Initial reports from Iran suggested Mojtaba Khamenei had escaped with relatively minor injuries, with some accounts mentioning a fractured foot and other non‑life‑threatening wounds.
Other reports, circulating largely outside official channels, claimed he was in a coma. Tehran's authorities did not address the discrepancies directly; instead, broadcasters read out statements attributed to him and referred to him in the present tense as 'Leader of the Islamic Revolution.'
On 12 March, less than two weeks after the attack, state media aired what it said was Mojtaba Khamenei's first statement as supreme leader. 'I assure everyone that we will not refrain from avenging the blood of your martyrs,' the text read.
It went on to declare that 'the retaliation we have in mind is not limited only to the martyrdom of the great leader of the revolution [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei]; rather, every member of the nation who is martyred by the enemy constitutes a separate case in the file of revenge.'
There was no audio recording or footage showing the new leader signing the document or delivering his warning to a gathered audience. Anchors in Tehran simply read the words on his behalf, as if he were just out of shot.
A second written statement, dated 1 April and again attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, promised continued backing for militant groups opposed to the US and Israel. 'I firmly declare that the consistent policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in continuing the path of the late Imam and martyred leader, is based on continuing to support the resistance against the Zionist-American enemy,' the text asserted. Once more, it appeared only as script, delivered by state television, with no corroborating sign that the man nominally issuing the threats was in any condition to do so.
Who Is Governing Iran if Mojtaba Khamenei Is Incapacitated?
Western intelligence, according to the Times report, takes a very different view of who is actually in control. If Mojtaba Khamenei is indeed unconscious in Qom, it would suggest that other senior figures — likely a mix of Revolutionary Guard commanders, clerics and security officials — are speaking in his name while holding power collectively, at least for now. None of those internal manoeuvres are visible to the Iranian public, who are instead being asked to accept that a leader they cannot see is guiding a response to the most serious direct confrontation with the US and Israel in decades.
Tehran has not publicly responded to the claim that Mojtaba Khamenei is unconscious. There has been no detailed medical update, no hospital photographs, and no attempt to dispel the speculation with a controlled appearance. In the absence of such evidence, and with state media continuing to rely solely on written statements, questions over the authenticity of those messages are likely to harden.
For now, almost everything about Mojtaba Khamenei's true condition remains behind layers of official opacity and foreign intelligence leaks. Nothing has been independently confirmed inside Iran, and, as ever in the Islamic Republic's most sensitive affairs, much of what is circulating should be treated with caution.
