A CLANDESTINE web of 4,000 shady figures protecting Iran’s evil supreme leader from overthrow has been exposed for the first time.
Evil Ali Khamenei has spent decades carving a vast network of stooges to ensure the regime’s tentacles have every aspect of the rogue nation in a chokehold.
Known as the Bayt-e Rahbari – or the Bayt – it safeguards the aging Ayatollah’s overarching iron-grip over Iran – and ultimately “coup-proofing” his regime.
Since the US and Israel launched an unprecedented 12-day blitz on the Islamic Republic last June, Khamenei, 86, has been increasing invisible in the public eye.
But extensive research by United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) today reveals while the West has interpreted this as vulnerability or even a leadership vacuum, it is actually proof of the immense apparatus working in the shadows.
Kasra Aarabi, director of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps research at UANI, told The Sun: “Khamenei has created the extensive Bayt apparatus to ‘coup proof’ his regime — and retain absolute control over every aspect of policy in the Islamic Republic.
“Khamenei has the Bayt to ensure continuity and the durability of the regime should he be eliminated.”
Intricate and covert, the network has tens of thousands of loyal henchmen propping up Khamenei behind the scenes – ready to pull the levers if and when war breaks out.
Acting as an insurance policy for if Khamenei is holed up in a bunker or killed – it makes it near-impossible to wipe out his twisted regime without a lengthy, well-executed operation.
“The structure he’s created ensures that his elimination will not result in the complete collapse of the regime — despite the fact that Khamenei has personalised every aspect of power in the Islamic Republic,” Kasra added.
“It has effectively transformed the supreme leader from an individual into an institution – one that can function regardless of whether Khamenei is hiding or even eliminated.”
Key players within this shadowy web can today be unmasked thanks to the UANI’s new report Inside the Supreme Leader’s Office, the Hidden Nerve Center of the Islamic Republic.
Khamenei has engineered a system whereby power does not simply lay just in his hands – but instead an all-encompassing institution.
The chief mullah now has more than 4,000 employees in his core office – with more than 40,000 working under the regime’s affiliated umbrella.
Ayatollah Mohammadi Golpayegani – whose son married one of
Khamenei’s daughters – serves as the executive of the supreme
leader’s office.
Second to him is Seyyed Ali Asghar Hejazi Khamenei’s deputy chief of staff – and the Bayt’s top security and intelligence figure.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Supreme Leader has several crucial agents, including deputy for special affairs Hossein Fadaee, a hardline former member of the IRGC.
The deputy for oversight and auditing is mandated to resolve disputes between organs under the control of Khamenei.
Other enforcers include deputy for security and intelligence;
deputy of cultural affairs, who controls Iran’s state broadcaster; deputy for communication and international relations, who manages the Supreme Leader’s representatives abroad.
But the true powerbrokers are Khamenei’s four sons – Mostafa, Mojtaba, Masoud, and Meysam.
And it’s the Ayatollah’s second-oldest son, Mojtaba, who effectively serves as a “mini-Supreme leader” within his father’s office – and is his most likely heir.
Kasra, who wrote and researched the report with UANI senior adviser Saeid Golkar, said: “The regime is perhaps at its weakest point yet the Bayt continues to ensure its durability.
“The Bayt provides that durability. It enables Khamenei to retain continuity and secure his legacy even if he is eliminated.
“This is precisely why if the goal is to bring meaningful change to Iran – not least regime change – the apparatus of the Bayt must be targeted and significantly weakened.
“In other words: without the Bayt, the system loses its durability.”
Brutal repression is embedded in Iran and is no secret to the world, but exposing Khamenei’s network has revealed how his envoys are planted across ministries, provinces, and key state bodies.
It allows Khamenei’s regime to be fully entrenched – vetting appointments and policies at every level to ensure allegiance.
Promotions and selections are not based on merit either. Unwavering loyalty to the Ayatollah is the most crucial factor.
Functioning as both a political and economic empire, it has allowed Khamenei, since he assumed power in 1979, to extend control beyond what began as a traditional religious office.
His warped regime is now entrenched in society – commanding the military, directing security operations, steering economic policy and enforcing ideological conformity.
The 40,000-plus keeping Khamenei’s twisted machine breathing are his most trusted ideological zealots.
Kasra said: “As part of this role, they absolutely act as the eyes and ears of the supreme leader – not just amongst wider Iranian society but crucially across the regime itself.
“Bayt members are entrenched in every single state entity from government to universities and the Shia seminaries – ensuring not just loyalty but Khamenei’s full control over policies across these entities.
“In essence, the Bayt enables Khamenei to micromanage every aspect of the Islamic regime.”
The Sun previously told how the tyrannical leader even demanded citizens act as undercover informants to turn in anyone who dares oppose the regime.
Countless critics have been thrown in hellish jails and many of those sent to the gallows for simply speaking out.
Despite this, Khamenei this year faced the biggest challenge to his barbaric rule to date – with thousands across the nation taking to the streets to protest.
Why brave Iran rebels have finally had enough of Ayatollah in their own words
Exclusive by Katie Davis, Deputy Foreign Editor
FEARLESS Iranians leading protests have told The Sun they would rather die than let the Ayatollah’s regime survive.
On the streets of Iran, the drums of rebellion have been beating hard – fuelled by a population pushed to the brink.
Facing the biggest challenge to his rule, the desperate Ayatollah is frantically trying to crush dissent.
But The Sun was given unprecedented access to speak with brave members of resistance units who risked their lives on the frontline of protests.
Amir, a member of a resistance unit in the city of Shiraz, told how Iranians feel they have “nothing left to lose”.
The 23-year-old said: “The young generation of Iran joins protests despite the risk of arrest, imprisonment, or even death, because for them, the cost of silence has exceeded the cost of protest.
“When a young person sees their future, job, security, and human dignity destroyed, fear gives way to anger, and a courage born of a complete dead end.
“This generation seeks a normal life: a predictable future, freedom of choice, justice, an end to discrimination, and respect for human beings, the very basic rights considered self-evident in many countries.
“They reject the regime because they have experienced repression, lies, discrimination, and political deadlock to their very core, and they have lost all hope in promises of reform.
“For this generation, rejecting the state is not a theoretical or emotional decision; it is the result of years of living under pressure and injustice.
“The youth of Iran do not ask for paradise; they want a country where they can live, breathe, and build a future. A life without a future is, in itself, a form of death.”
Protests descended into scenes of untold bloodshed as Khamenei ordered his death squads to “show no mercy”.
Brave rebels told The Sun how they would rather die than let the Ayatollah’s iron-grip continue.
But Kasra said toppling Khamenei – or even his assassination – would not be enough to dissolve his regime.
“The unfamiliarity with how the Bayt operates and its extensive machinery resulted in misinterpreting Khamenei’s absence from the public eye as being akin to his increasing irrelevance the emergence of a power vacuum,” he added.
“This is a complete misreading of the reality.
“Even with his fewer public appearances since the 12-day war – due to fear of assassination – Khamenei has actually been tightening his grip on power and the regime through the Bayt.
“In other words, the Bayt guarantees the supreme leader’s control even with Khamenei’s absence.”
It comes as Donald Trump holds his finger over the trigger to unleash sweeping strikes over Iran if the Ayatollah continues to refuse to cut a deal over his nuclear empire.
The Sun told last week how the US leader is plotting to obliterate Iran’s regime with a meticulously planned mission involving air raids and Mossad agents.
Radars across the rogue nation would be blinded before a series of precision strikes to annihilate the regime’s nuclear sites – and more, insiders say.
Pentagon plans for an air blitz to destroy Iran‘s missile capabilities, remaining nuclear sites and Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] could stretch for weeks, experts say.
Major General Jack Keane, director of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, told The Sun: “Now is the time to hit Iran because it is weak.”
