US attacks twice nearly killed Mojtaba Khamenei, report says

Bangla Press Desk: Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was pulled from the rubble of a Tehran hospital after joint US and Israeli strikes targeted the facility where he was receiving treatment, an Iranian cleric has said.

Mohsen Heydari, a member of Iran's Assembly of Experts, told Qatari television network Al Araby on Thursday that Khamenei had been rushed to hospital after the strikes targeting his father, only to be caught up in further bombing of the facility, the New York Post reports.

The US and Israel had launched the war on Feb 28 by striking Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's Tehran compound, killing the 86-year-old supreme leader and dozens of his top officials.

The allies are reported to have bombed three separate hospitals in Tehran in the days that followed.

"Even after he had been wounded and taken to the hospital, three hospitals in Tehran were bombed," Heydari said.

"Mojtaba Khamenei was in the third hospital and was pulled from the rubble."

The younger Khamenei, 56, has not been seen in public or heard from since, having vanished to an unknown location after being pulled from the wreckage, the American daily said.

He reportedly had no idea he had been named the new supreme leader on Mar 8 until the announcement was broadcast on state television, as per the New York Post.

Once the decision was made, Heydari said, Khamenei was "legally and religiously" obligated to accept it.

The Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for selecting Iran's supreme leader, was itself targeted by the US and Israel, the report said.

Its Qom secretariat was bombed, killing eight people and destroying reports and recommendations on a successor.

Members of the assembly were made to write their votes on paper before being summoned to a secret room a week after the first strikes, without being told the location or purpose of the meeting in advance.

Heydari said he was the first to propose Mojtaba’s name during the session, defying US President Donald Trump, who had warned Iran against choosing the late Khamenei's son, reportedly seen as even more hardline than his father.

"Given the enemy's position, we will choose and elect no one as leader and supreme guide of the Islamic Republic except Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei," Heydari recalled telling the meeting.

"We obtained information that [Mojtaba] was healthy and able to lead, and we determined that he met the requirements of religious qualification, justice and competence to manage the country," he told Al Araby.

Mojtaba received 50 of 59 votes cast during the meeting, the New York Post reported. Eight members voted for Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, while one abstained.

Heydari described Khamenei as a "man of the shadows" in the interview, noting he had never held a political position within the Iranian state before becoming supreme leader, though he reportedly served as an advisor to his father.

Speculation has persisted for months over Mojtaba's health, and even whether he remains alive, with US intelligence reports suggesting he was “badly disfigured” in the attacks.

Trump said last month that he did not believe Mojtaba was dead.

"He [Mojtaba] was very seriously wounded. The left side of his body, the arm, the leg, the whole thing. He was very seriously wounded, but I don't think he's dead," the president said.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, however, described the out-of-sight supreme leader as "completely" healthy in an interview with Fox News this week, while in New York for the UN General Assembly.