Iran's Assembly of Experts picked Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his late father as supreme leader, who was killed in the strikes that ignited the ongoingU.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Mojtaba Khamenei, a mid-ranking cleric with influence within Iran's security forces and vast business networks under his father, had been seen as a frontrunner in the lead-up to the assembly, a body of 88 clerics charged with choosing the new leader after Ali Khamenei's death, vote.
"By a decisive vote, the Assembly of Experts, appointed Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei as the third Leader of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran," the assembly said in a statement issued just after midnight Tehran time.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the joint strikes with Israel on Iran, an Israeli source confirmed to USA TODAY. Reuters and CNN also reported that Khamenei had been killed during the operation. He was a cleric and politician who led Iran since 1989. He previously served as the president from 1981 to 1989. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, February 17, 2026. This image was provided by the Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" />
Pedestrians pass a burned out building on Jan. 10, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. Some areas of Tehran sustained heavy damage during ongoing protests that came to a head on Jan. 8, amid a growing economic and political crisis sweeping the country. Protests began at the end of December over inflation and turned into demonstrations against the nation's repressive government. Islamic Revolutionary Guard troops, state police and other government agents responded fiercely on Jan. 8 and 9, firing at close range using guns loaded with metal pellets on protesters and since then the government has threatened capital punishment for people involved. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
Who is Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader killed in US-Israeli attack? See him in power
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneiwas killed in the joint strikes with Israel on Iran, an Israeli source confirmed to USA TODAY. Reuters and CNN also reported that Khamenei had been killed during the operation. He was a cleric and politician who led Iran since 1989. He previously served as the president from 1981 to 1989.Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, February 17, 2026. This image was provided by the Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader.
His appointment will likely draw the ire of PresidentDonald Trump, who said on March 8 that the United States should have a say in the selection. "If he doesn't get approval from us, he's not going to last long," he told ABC News. Israel, ahead of the announcement, threatened to target whoever was chosen.
Here's what we know about Mojtaba Khamenei.
Cleric and shadow figure in Iran
Mojtaba Khamenei was born in 1969 in the holy Shi'ite city of Mashhad and grew up as his father was helping lead the opposition to the Shah. He studied under religious conservatives in the seminaries of Qom, Iran's center of Shi'ite theological learning, and has the clerical rank of Hojjatoleslam.
He served in the Habib Battalion of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during multiple operations in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s,according to Al Jazeera.
He has never held a formal position in the Islamic Republic's government but was widely believed to have been behind the sudden rise of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected president in 2005.
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The reformist wing of the government accused Mojtaba Khamenei of tampering with elections and using the IRGC's paramilitary Basij force during the 2009 Green Movement after Ahmadinejad secured a second presidential term,according to Al Jazeera.
Public awareness of Mojtaba Khamenei grew during the 2022 women's rights protests, where he became one of the targets of protesters' ire, according to theWall Street Journal. "Mojtaba, may you die and not see the leadership," the newspaper reported a crowd chanting in Tehran at the time.
First hereditary transition since the Iranian Revolution
Mojtaba Khamenei's appointment marks the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that the role of Supreme Leader has moved from father to son,according to The Guardian. Though he kept a low profile, Mojtaba Khamenei has had his hands on government power.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Mojtaba Khamenei in 2019, saying he represented the supreme leader in "an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position" aside from working in his father's office.
Its website said the supreme leader had previously delegated some of his responsibilities to Mojtaba Khamenei, who it said had worked closely with the commander of the IRGC's Quds Force and the Basij, a religious militia affiliated with the Guards, "to advance his father's destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives."
"He has strong constituency and support within the IRGC, in particular amongst the younger radical generations," Kasra Aarabi, head of researching the IRGC at United Against Nuclear Iran, told Reuters.
Contributing: Reuters
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Mojtaba Khamenei was named the supreme leader in Iran. What we know