Iran‘s new Supreme Leader is unaware of the ongoing war in the Middle East and does not know he is the Islamic Republic’s new leader, according to a new report.
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, succeeded his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following his assassination on February 28.
He is reportedly in a coma at the Sina University Hospital in Tehran following an airstrike, according to a source in Tehran.
Due to his condition, he does not know of the ongoing war, the death of his family members, including his wife and son and of his own election as Supreme leader, the source said.
Mojtaba is also reportedly in intensive care and surrounded by security officials, while a large section of the hospital has been sealed off to guard Iran’s Supreme Leader.
It is unclear whether Mojtaba was injured in the same air strikes which killed his 86-year-old father.
A separate source told the Sun through secret messages sent to an exiled dissident based in London: ‘One or two of his legs have been cut off. His liver or stomach has also ruptured. He is apparently in a coma as well.’
The source, who does not want to be named out of fear for his life, said the new Supreme Leader is under the care of Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi, Iran’s Minister of Health, Treatment and Medical Education and one of the country’s top trauma surgeons.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has lost a leg and is in a coma, a report has claimed
Smoke rises after airstrikes in Tehran, Iran on March 13, 2026. Successive explosions were heard across the Iranian capital Tehran on Friday, amid continuing regional tensions following US and Israeli strikes on Iran
He is believed to be assisted by another senior surgeon, Dr Mohammad Marashi – the brother of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s wife and a trusted figure in the Islamic regime.
The wounded Supreme Leader is also reported to have received a visit from the current Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, two days ago. The president is believed to be fully briefed on Khamenei’s condition.
Other reports suggest that Iranian commanders have not received orders from their new supreme leader.
An Iranian official speaking from inside the war-torn country told The Telegraph: ”No one knows anything about Mojtaba, whether he is alive or dead or how badly injured.’
‘We are all just told that he’s injured. He has no control over the war because he is not here. The majority of commanders, or more correctly, all commanders, have no news about him.’
Questions about Mojtaba’s whereabouts have only intensified since he issued his first statement on the war on Thursday. However, he did not appear on camera, and a news anchor read his remarks.
The statement said that Iran would not refrain from avenging the ‘blood of its martyrs.’
The Iranian leader added that while he believes in maintaining a friendship with Iran’s Gulf neighbours, attacks on US bases in the region will continue.
Authorities in Iran announced Mojtaba Khamenei, the late Ayatollah’s second son, as Iran’s new Supreme Leader on Sunday. He addressed the nation in a statement yesterday
The Supreme Leader’s statement was read on state TV by a news anchor (pictured)
He said: ‘We are not an enemy of the countries around us, and we are only targeting the bases of those Americans.’
The newly declared Ayatollah’s statement added that Iran was seeking to improve relations with its neighbours: ‘We send a message to the leaders of the region and emphasise that we are going to have good relations with the countries around us.’
His declaration called for all American bases in the region to be immediately closed in his shared message: ‘The existence of the US bases in [Iran’s neighbours] and usage of those bases to attack Iran is not benefiting the region, and they must be closed.’
He also said Iran will seek compensation from its enemies or destroy their assets accordingly, and offered financial compensation to those in Iran who have been hurt by the outbreak of violence: ‘A limited amount of this revenge has so far taken concrete form, but until it is fully achieved, this case will remain among our priorities.’
The Iranian leader hinted at Iran’s proxies in the region supporting his fight against the US and Israel, claiming that armed groups in Iraq ‘want to help’ his nation, while those in Yemen ‘will also do the job.’
He also spoke of the loss of many members of his family during the US-Israeli airstrike that killed his father: ‘I lost my father, I lost my wife. My sister lost her child as well as her husband, who was martyred.
‘But what makes it easier for us to endure all these plights is to trust the grace of God and to know that patience is going to resolve it.’
While the new Supreme Leader has also not been seen for weeks, Iran is being run by regional commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who are believed to be under orders to fight on indefinitely – even without a leader.
It comes as another source, a former study partner of Mojtaba, revealed that the new Supreme Leader is said to be ‘obsessed with the end of days’ and is ‘more dangerous’ than his father.
It is impossible to verify the condition of Iran’s new Supreme Leader due to the regime’s current internet blackout, but Iranian state TV have referred to Mojtaba as ‘Jaanbaz of Ramadan’ – meaning ‘wounded war veteran’.
Many believe the regime is being run by a ‘Ghost Ayatollah’, as the rogue state continues hitting neighbouring Gulf nations and sending oil and gas prices soaring.
Mojtaba Khamenei is reportedly unafraid of ‘killing thousands’ and will ‘try and control the region’ if war breaks out, exiled official Jaber Rajabi has revealed.
Rajabi, a former foreign policy advisor to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has lived in exile in the UAE since 2021, studied at a ‘religious seminary’ with Mojtaba Khamenei in Qom.
He has spoken out to warn that Iran’s new Supreme Leader is more ruthless than his father and a ‘better liar’.
Rajabi told the Jerusalem Post: ‘Mojtaba will not, from the first day in power, claim to want to take Al-Quds (Jerusalem).
‘He is opposite to his father, who gets angry, and it is visible… Mojtaba can lie in a much better way and knows how to play.’
While studying with Mojtaba at The Qom Seminary – the most highly regarded centre for Islamic scholarship in Iran – Rajabi described him as ‘obsessed with the end of days’ and that he believed ‘he himself will have a special part in hastening humanity down that path’.
According to Twelver Shia – the largest branch of Shia Islam studied by Khamenei at Qom – the 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who is believed to be in hiding, will return at the end of times to establish a period of global justice in which oppression is eradicated.
Islamic apocalyptic traditions describe major conflicts happening before this era, including the Malhama al-Kubra – a great battle sometimes interpreted as a confrontation with Western powers.
Rajabi said: ‘I remember Khamenei spoke in Hawza studies [and] said the nuclear issue and the soldiers are his heritage. Mojtaba’s ambitions will not be impacted by airstrikes.
‘There are other matters I can’t mention… They need the nuclear issue as a protection for their regime and their hegemony in the region.’
Rajabi added that Khamenei had a disregard for human life, saying: ‘If he can kill 13,000 of his own people, then he has no problem killing 100,000 in Tel Aviv, because if you don’t care about the lives of your own people, why would you care about the lives of others in Tel Aviv?’
An oil tanker burns after being hit by an Iranian strike in the ship-to-ship transfer zone at Khor al-Zubair port near Basra, Iraq, late Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Mojtaba, who has not been seen in public or pictured since taking over from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday, is believed to have been injured in the attack on his father’s compound in Tehran on the first day of the war.
‘He was also there, and he was injured in that bombardment,’ Alireza Salarian, Iran’s ambassador to Cyprus, told The Guardian.
‘I have heard that he was injured in his legs, hand and arm… I think he is in the hospital because he is injured.’
Mojtaba’s injuries are behind his mysterious absence from the public eye, the ambassador said, adding he also wants to avoid the glare of Israel and the US.
He said: ‘I don’t think he is comfortable [in any condition] to give a speech.’
Iranian officials have claimed he remains alert and is sheltering at a highly secure location with limited communication.
Some sources claim Mojtaba, who did not attend his own succession rally, has no idea the war is even happening, or that his wife and son have been killed.
The ‘vengeful’ hardline cleric was marked for assassination by Israel after it vowed to ‘eliminate’ whoever succeeded the slain Ayatollah, having killed him, Mojtaba’s wife Zahra Haddad-Adel and one of his sons in strikes on Tehran on the first day of the war.
Donald Trump also ramped up his threats against the supreme leader, claiming he won’t be able to ‘live in peace’ and warning Iran to brace for ‘death, fire and fury.’
Mojtaba has never given a public speech since succeeding his father, and there is now speculation that he is dead.
It comes as Iran launched multiple attacks early Friday on Gulf Arab states, including dozens of drones at Saudi Arabia, following warnings from its new supreme leader about hosting American bases, and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened major new retaliation.
‘Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today,’ Trump wrote in a social media post. ‘Iran’s Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth.’
Smoke rises after airstrikes in Tehran, Iran on March 13, 2026. Successive explosions were heard across the Iranian capital Tehran on Friday, amid continuing regional tensions following US and Israeli strikes on Iran
The comments came the day after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei vowed to ‘not refrain from avenging the blood’ of Iranians killed, and warned Gulf Arab nations to shut U.S. bases, saying the notion of American protection was ‘nothing more than a lie.’
Intense airstrikes landed around Iran’s capital, Tehran, early Friday, just before rallies were to begin for the annual Quds Day event in support of the Palestinians. Despite the attacks, thousands of people took to the streets chanting ‘death to Israel’ and ‘death to America.’
With growing global concerns about a possible energy crisis and no end to the war in sight, the price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, remained stubbornly over $100 per barrel as Iran kept its stranglehold on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil transits on its way from the Persian Gulf to the open seas.
Brent prices have spiked as high as about $120 per barrel and are currently some 40 per cent higher than when Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Feb. 28 to start the war.
Iran has been attacking ships that try to transit the strait, and Khamenei’s comments said Iran would continue to block the waterway.
In Iraq, recovery efforts were underway after an American KC-135 refuelling plane went down, according to U.S. Central Command.
And a French soldier who was stationed in the north of the country was killed in an attack, the French president said Friday.
