Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, issued a threat to the United States on Thursday from a hiding place, saying the only place Americans belong in the Persian Gulf is “at the bottom of its waters.”
In a statement read in his name on Iranian state television, Khamenei also said 90 million Iranians “will protect” the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and missile capabilities, as U.S. President Donald Trump demands Tehran formally abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
About six weeks after being appointed supreme leader following the killing of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei has yet to appear in public. Ali Khamenei was killed on the morning Israel launched Operation Roaring the Lion. According to reports, the younger Khamenei is being held in a secure location where he is receiving treatment for severe injuries sustained in the same strike that killed his father, his wife and his son. He is said to be awaiting a prosthetic leg and plastic surgery for burns to his face, which also make it difficult for him to speak.
Iranian sources recently told The New York Times that he does not want to appear in public while weak and injured and is waiting for his condition to improve.
Earlier Thursday, Iran announced that a message from Khamenei would be released shortly, prompting brief speculation that he might appear on camera. It later became clear he again chose to issue only a written statement.
In the statement, published on X and read on state television, Khamenei said: “Ninety million proud and honorable Iranians inside and outside the country regard all of Iran’s identity-based, spiritual, human, scientific, industrial and technological capacities — from nanotechnology and biotechnology to nuclear and missile capabilities — as national assets, and will protect them just as they protect the country’s waters, land and airspace.”
He added: “By God’s help and power, the bright future of the Persian Gulf region will be a future without America, one serving the progress, comfort and prosperity of its people.
“We and our neighbors across the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman share a common destiny. Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometers away to act with greed and malice there have no place in it — except at the bottom of its waters.”