Amid escalating Middle East conflict and rising fears of assassination, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is learnt to have taken refuge in a secure underground bunker and named three senior clerics as his possible successors, according to a report by The New York Times.
The move marks a dramatic shift in Iran’s power structure as the country faces one of its gravest wartime threats in decades — a two-front war with Israel and US military involvement.
According to the NYT report, Ayatollah Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba — a cleric with strong ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and once widely speculated to be a leading contender — has not been included among the potential successors.
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Another prominent figure, former conservative president Ebrahim Raisi, had also been seen as a top candidate before his death in a helicopter crash in 2024, the report said.
Questions on Khamenei’s whereabouts have grown after US carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday, with President Donald Trump asking Iran to “end the war” immediately.
‘Massive security breach’ in Iranian intelligence team
The 86-year-old leader, known for rarely stepping outside his heavily guarded compound in Tehran, has reportedly suspended all electronic communications and now relays instructions only through a trusted aide.
Three Iranian officials familiar with the emergency plans told NYT that this is part of a sweeping wartime protocol aimed at avoiding detection by Israel and the United States, both of which have allegedly warned of a potential assassination plot.
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“It is clear that we had a massive security and intelligence breach; there is no denying this,” said Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to parliament speaker Gen. Mohammad Ghalibaf, in an audio clip obtained by NYT. “Our senior commanders were all assassinated within one hour.”
865 dead, Over 3000 injured in Iran
Iran-Israel war entered its tenth day on Sunday since Israel’s surprise offensive. More than 865 Iranians have reportedly been killed, and 3,396 injured, according to a human rights group cited by the Associated Press.
The strikes have hit deep into Tehran and targeted Iran’s nuclear scientists, military bases, and energy infrastructure.
Now with President Donald Trump at the helm, US inserted itself in the Middle East conflict with airstrikes on three nuclear sites in Iran.
Washington launched its powerful B-2 bombers, Bunker busters and Tomahawk missile strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear sites — the highly fortified Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan
Also Read | How China, Pak, others reacted to US airstrikes on Iran: ‘Catastrophic consequences’
“Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terror,” Trump said in a nationally televised address, a day after US bombed Iran.
Ayatollah Khamenei has reportedly instructed Iran’s Assembly of Experts — the powerful clerical body that selects the Supreme Leader — to be prepared to appoint his successor from the three candidates he has named, should he be killed. Typically, such a transition would take months, but Khamenei’s directive seeks to ensure a “quick, orderly transition,” the report notes.
