Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has emerged as a key figure in shaping Iran’s war strategy during the conflict and in directing officials involved in diplomatic negotiations with the United States to end the war.
Despite sustaining serious injuries in the same strike in which his father, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed along with several senior Iranian military commanders on the first day of the attack launched by the United States and Israel, Mojtaba has reportedly remained deeply involved in shaping Iran’s wartime strategy, directing military operations, and guiding diplomatic efforts aimed at reaching a settlement with Washington, according to assessments by U.S. intelligence officials.CNN reported that Mojtaba suffered severe burns across his face, arm, torso, and leg.
US intelligence believes he is playing a pivotal role even as he recovers largely out of public view, communicating exclusively through in-person meetings or handwritten notes carried by couriers, deliberately avoiding any electronic communication.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian confirmed this week that he had held a two-and-a-half-hour face-to-face meeting with Mojtaba, the first publicly confirmed encounter between the new supreme leader and a senior Iranian official since the attack.
Mazaher Hosseini, head of protocol in the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader, said on Friday that Khamenei is recovering from his injuries and “is now in complete health.”
According to CNN, Hosseini sought to downplay concerns about Iran's supreme leader's condition and stated that Khamenei sustained minor injuries to his foot and lower back, and that “a small piece of shrapnel had hit him behind the ear,” but added that the wounds are healing.
“Thank God, he is in good health,” Hosseini told a crowd in Iran. “The enemy is spreading all kinds of rumors and false claims. They want to see him and find him, but people should be patient and not rush. He will speak to you when the time is right.”
US analysts acknowledge they cannot visually confirm Mojtaba's whereabouts, and some question whether officials inside Iran's power structure may be overstating their access to him to advance personal agendas.
Despite the uncertainty, the war has degraded Iran’s military capabilities, but not destroyed them, according to U.S. intelligence reports. Roughly two-thirds of its missile launchers are believed to be still operational, a figure higher than earlier estimates, partly due to the ongoing ceasefire, which has given Iran time to recover and dig out launchers that may have been buried during earlier attacks, according to sources familiar with the intelligence.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio described Iran's governing structure as "highly fractured," and the White House has emphasised that military pressure, economic isolation, and internal divisions have significantly weakened the regime. President Trump has gone further, arguing that Iran has effectively undergone regime change and that current negotiators are more "reasonable" than those who came before.
Day-to-day operational management appears to be shared among senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps figures and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led the first round of nuclear and ceasefire negotiations with the US. Those talks, held in Islamabad last month, ended without a deal, and a planned second round never materialized. Trump later attributed the breakdown to deep internal divisions within Tehran's leadership.
A CIA assessment also concluded Iran could withstand the current US-led blockade for up to four more months before facing severe economic disruption, CNN reported.
