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Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, the second son of former Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been named Iran’s new supreme chief, Iranian state media reported Sunday.
Whereas the brand new supreme chief has by no means held elected workplace, the 57-year-old for years has operated quietly behind the scenes from inside his father’s workplace — cultivating affect throughout the safety institution, notably inside the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen by Iran’s Meeting of Consultants, comprised of 88 clerics and supervised by the 12-member Guardian Council, which acts as a watchdog for Iran’s structure. Ali Khamenei was killed on Feb. 28 in a strike that additionally took out about 40 different excessive rating Iranian officers.
When his father grew to become supreme chief in 1989, Mojtaba Khamenei successfully grew to become one in all his closest aides. Through the years, he has been concerned in operating components of the state equipment, along with his affect rising notably after the 2009 political unrest often known as the Inexperienced Revolution. He’s believed to have performed a task in coordinating parts of the federal government response — a brutal crackdown involving killings and mass arrests.
Mojtaba Khamenei studied theology in Qom and served within the Iran-Iraq struggle within the Nineteen Eighties, throughout which he was injured. The struggle was the place he developed shut ties with the navy providers and with the IRGC.
Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto through Getty Photos 
In Iran’s political system, the IRGC wields huge navy, financial and political energy — and Mojtaba Khamenei’s authority has largely come from proximity to energy relatively than his non secular stature.
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His choice as supreme chief indicators that Iran’s ruling elite has chosen stability over experimentation at a second of maximum stress. His deep ties to the Revolutionary Guard and safety equipment additionally counsel that the establishments driving Iran’s present struggle posture will retain sturdy affect within the subsequent section of management. It additionally marks one thing unprecedented within the Islamic Republic: a management transition that successfully retains energy inside the similar household.
He turns into simply the third supreme chief since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini got here to energy.
Main a secretive life, Mojtaba Khamenei has by no means given a public speech and isn’t seen out and about. As there may be not a lot public file of him, his political beliefs will not be totally recognized, however many analysts contemplate him a hardliner. He was his father’s assistant, and he has been instructing in Qom seminary, Iran’s essential clerical heart, for about eight years.
Mojtaba Khamenei is married and has at the very least two youngsters, a son and a daughter.
President Trump had beforehand spoken out towards Mojtaba Khamenei, calling him a “light-weight,” and has stated that any supreme chief appointed with out U.S. approval is “not going to final lengthy.”
Requested concerning the alternative in a quick telephone interview with Fox Information’ Brian Kilmeade, Mr. Trump stated, “I’m not joyful,” Kilmeade reported.
An adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, American-born Israeli businessman Michael Eisenberg, advised CBS Information that the youthful Khamenei’s new job title comes with an infinite quantity of non-public threat.
“The very best threat job proper now could be to be the brand new ayatollah,” Eisenberg stated. “That is a high-risk job.”
Israel’s Mossad intelligence company warned in a social media publish final week that regardless of who Iran selected, “his destiny has been decreed,” with a graphic depicting senior Iranian clerics being toppled as dominoes.
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