Overview
- Mohsen Heydari, a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, told Al Araby that Mojtaba Khamenei was injured in the Feb. 28 US‑Israel strikes, taken to a Tehran hospital, and later “pulled from the rubble” after that facility was hit.
- Heydari said the Assembly met in secrecy on March 8, recorded votes on paper and selected Mojtaba as supreme leader with 50 of 59 votes while some Qom secretariat documents were destroyed.
- The new account comes from an Assembly insider and has not been independently verified, and multiple outlets have repeated Heydari’s interview without corroboration.
- Public statements about Mojtaba’s health conflict sharply: President Trump and US intelligence have described severe wounds while Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi say he is able to lead and that images are withheld for security reasons.
- The competing narratives and reported damage to the Assembly’s Qom records complicate transparency about Iran’s succession and raise questions about how leadership decisions and command will be seen by domestic actors and foreign governments.