14:29 GMT
Ghoncheh Habibiazad
Senior reporter, BBC Persian
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption,
Mojtaba Khamenei pictured during a demonstration in Tehran in May 2019
The fact that Mojtaba Khamenei has not yet been seen on state media has led to widespread speculation on social media, particularly among the Iranian diaspora, about whether Iran’s new supreme leader has been injured, or even whether he is still alive.
What we know so far is limited.
Iran’s state TV news channel has referred to him as a “veteran of the Ramadan war”, without providing any further confirmation as to whether he has been injured. Reuters has reported that he was “lightly injured”, citing an unnamed Iranian official.
In addition to his father, the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba Khamenei’s mother and wife were also killed in the US-Israeli strikes.
We have yet to see him in public, or in videos or photographs on state media, even though it has now been almost four days since he became Iran’s third supreme leader on 8 March.
Iran’s supreme leader is elected indirectly by the Assembly of Experts, a constitutional body consisting of 88 members responsible for both the election and supervision of the supreme leader.
One thing that caught my attention in Mojtaba Khamenei’s first message was his claim that he learned he had become the supreme leader of Iran via the country’s state TV channel.
“I learned about the result of the vote of the esteemed Assembly of Experts at the same time as you and through the Islamic Republic’s television,” Khamenei said in his message, which was read aloud a presenter.