{"id":469810,"date":"2026-03-11T14:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/469810\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T14:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:58:13","slug":"mojtaba-khamenei-was-hurt-in-strike-that-killed-his-father-irans-cyprus-ambassador-confirms-mojtaba-khamenei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/469810\/","title":{"rendered":"Mojtaba Khamenei was hurt in strike that killed his father, Iran\u2019s Cyprus ambassador confirms | Mojtaba Khamenei"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei<\/a>, was injured in the 28 February attack that killed six of his family members, including his father, Tehran\u2019s ambassador to Cyprus has confirmed.<\/p>\n

In an interview conducted at his embassy compound in Nicosia, Alireza Salarian elaborated on the circumstances in which Khamenei, 56, was injured, saying he was lucky to survive the strike, which levelled the late ayatollah\u2019s residence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was also there and he was injured in that bombardment but I haven\u2019t seen that reflected in the foreign news,\u201d he told the Guardian. \u201cI have heard that he was injured in his legs and hand and arm \u2026 I think he is in the hospital because he is injured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Explaining why the cleric had not appeared in public or made any statements since he succeeded his father on Sunday, he added: \u201cI don\u2019t think he is comfortable [in any condition] to give a speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

The attack occurred on the opening day of US-led airstrikes against Iran, when the sprawling presidential complex in the heart of Tehran was targeted. It was the 10th day of the holy month of Ramadan, said the ambassador, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a> was at his residence with several members of his family, including Mojtaba\u2019s wife, Zahra, and his teenage son, Mohammad Bagher, who were also killed in the attack.<\/p>\n

Alireza Salarian conducted the interview at his embassy compound in Nicosia. Photograph: Helena Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Iranian media reports suggested that Ali Khamenei\u2019s wife, Mansour, died three days after the aerial strike.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe [late] supreme leader was killed with his wife, with his daughter, with his son-in-law and with his daughter\u2019s 14-month-old baby,\u201d said Salarian, who was in Iran when the US-led offensive began. \u201cThey were inside their house near the presidential office. Top commanders were also killed as they were also invited. The supreme leader had four sons and two daughters and actually he lived in the same place where he worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday Yousef Pezeshkian, a top government adviser and the son of Iran\u2019s president, had said Mojtaba Khamenei was wounded but stopped short of explaining how. In a post on his Telegram channel, he wrote: \u201cI heard news that Mr Mojtaba Khamenei had been injured. I have asked some friends who had connections. They told me that, thank God, he is safe and sound.\u201d An Iranian official on Wednesday told Reuters that Khamenei was \u201clightly injured\u201d but still continuing to operate.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week Iranian state TV described the regime\u2019s new leader as a \u201cwounded veteran of the Ramadan war\u201d but did not specify his injuries.<\/p>\n

The US president, Donald Trump, called Mojtaba Khamenei\u2019s election by an 88-member committee of clerics \u201can unacceptable choice\u201d, adding: \u201cHe is not going to last long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel has warned it will not hesitate to assassinate the Shia cleric, thought to be as hardline as his father, who had held the post for 37 years after the Islamic revolution.<\/p>\n

Salarian told the Guardian the late ayatollah had not wanted his son to replace him. \u201cHigh-ranking clergymen did ask him but the late supreme leader said \u2018no\u2019 because he didn\u2019t want a dynastic system. He was elected. [After the attack] top-ranking clergymen said: \u2018This is your job; you have to obey.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Western intelligence services believe the new leader is being deliberately kept out of the public eye for fear of an assassination attempt. \u201cI don\u2019t know if he [the new leader] is worried or not, but we know that the US, and especially Israel, will target him,\u201d the ambassador said.<\/p>\n

Estimating that the death toll from the war in Iran had reached 1,400 by Tuesday, Salarian said Tehran, a city of 14 million, had been emptied of \u201caround half of its population\u201d, with people fleeing to other cities as a result of the bombardment.<\/p>\n

The attacks had not only taken the country\u2019s political and diplomatic elite by surprise \u2013 despite the military buildup in the region \u2013 but proved, he said, that unlike his predecessors, Trump did not believe in the rule of law or abide by it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody believed, expected or predicted the attacks when we had finished a third round of negotiations in Geneva. Trump is a phenomenon. He does not believe in rule of law internationally or even internally in his own country,\u201d said the envoy, while praising the administrations of Joe Biden and Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Denying that Iran had any intention of developing a nuclear bomb, he said: \u201cThe late supreme leader himself announced that we are not going to have nuclear weapons based on Iran\u2019s religious code under which using nuclear weapons is forbidden.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran, he said, had friendly relations with Cyprus<\/a> despite the \u201cproblem\u201d posed by British bases on the eastern Mediterranean island. During the 12-day war in June last year the installations had provided logistical support to Israeli and US forces targeting military and nuclear facilities in the Islamic republic, he claimed.<\/p>\n

But this time, he said, there was no evidence \u201cthese two military bases support, or are involved in, this attack\u201d.<\/p>\n

RAF Akrotiri was struck by an explosive-packed Iranian-made Shahed drone just after midnight on 28 February, with similar devices being used in attacks intercepted by British fighter jets the next day.<\/p>\n

Blaming the strikes on militia groups in Lebanon that had neither coordinated with Iran nor were within \u201cour control\u201d, he instead suggested without giving any evidence that Israel could have \u201cstaged\u201d the attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the bases are used in Cyprus [against us] we have the right to respond. Everybody knows that \u2026 our relevant authorities have said that. Iran was not behind these drone attacks and it has announced that. It is possible that [the attacks] came from Israel with the aim of involving other countries in this war.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was injured in the 28 February attack that killed six of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-469810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}