Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was only seconds away from being killed by Israel at the start of the war, surviving only because he stepped out for a walk in the courtyard minutes before his home was struck by missiles, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported Monday evening.
According to the Telegraph, an audio recording obtained by the newspaper indicates that Mojtaba Khamenei was one of the targets in the strike that killed his father, the slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei, along with other senior figures in the Islamic Republic’s leadership on the morning the current war with Iran began, on February 28. Israel struck the location where they were staying at 9:32 a.m. Iran time, while Mojtaba Khamenei had stepped outside “to do something” just moments earlier.
The file obtained by The Daily Telegraph, on which the report is based, is a recording by Mazaher Hosseini, head of the protocol office in the bureau of the slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The recording was intended for senior clerics and commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to the newspaper, its reporters independently verified the authenticity of the audio that was passed to them.
In the recording, Hosseini is heard revealing that Mojtaba Khamenei was wounded in his leg, while his wife, his son and his brother-in-law were killed. It also says that the body of Mohammad Shirazi, head of Khamenei’s military office, was “blown to pieces,” and that only “a few kilograms of flesh” remained to identify him.
Hosseini is also heard saying in the recording: “It was God’s will that Mojtaba went out to the courtyard to do something and then return. He was outside and had just begun climbing the stairs when the building was hit by a missile. His wife, Mrs. Haddad, was killed on the spot.”
Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public since the start of the war, and the only message attributed to him has been a written statement read on Iranian television. This has fueled speculation — including by U.S. President Donald Trump — that he may in fact have been more seriously wounded than Iran has acknowledged.