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Which Khamenei family members were killed at start of war? / Photo: © AFP
Which Khamenei family members were killed at start of war?
The US-Israeli air strikes that on February 28 killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei not only resulted in the death of Iran's longstanding supreme leader but also several key family members.
His son Mojtaba, one of Khamenei's six children, was a week later named the new supreme leader. Other key family members were however killed, even though there has been uncertainty about the fate of some.
In a message read out on his behalf on state TV on Thursday, Mojtaba Khamenei alluded to the family losses, saying as well as his father had also lost in the attack "my dear and loyal wife", his sister, her child and his brother-in-law.
Mojtaba Khamenei's message gave no indication of his own physical condition but the Pentagon said Friday he was "wounded" and "likely disfigured".
Confirmed killed
- Ali Khamenei
Supreme leader since 1989, Khamenei was killed on the February 28 strikes. Iranian officials initially denied his death but state media confirmed a day later that he had been killed.
No images have been released in public of his corpse and a state funeral that was supposed to have been held earlier this month has been postponed indefinitely.
Mojtaba Khamanei said in his message he had seen the late ayatollah's corpse after his "martyrdom".
Mojtaba Khamenei described the body as "a mountain of steadfastness" with the fist of his father's one functioning hand -- his other arm was paralysed after a bomb attack in the 1980s -- clenched in a sign of defiance.
- Zahra Haddad-Adel
Zahra Haddad-Adel was the wife of Mojtaba and the daughter of prominent conservative figure Gholam Ali Haddad–Adel, a former parliament speaker who also confirmed her death in televised comments.
Such marriages between prominent religiously conservative families are common among the Iranian political establishment.
- Other family members
Mojtaba Khamenei said his "self-sacrificing sister" was killed, as well as her child, and the husband of "my other sister".
He did not specify the names. As well as three brothers, Mojtaba had two sisters, Hoda and Boshra. Boshra married the son of Khamanei's longstanding gatekeeper and chief of staff, the cleric Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani.
Hoda married Mesbah Bagheri Kani, the son of prominent cleric Mohammad Bagher Bagheri. There are also unconfirmed reports that several of Ali Khamenei's grandchildren were killed.
Reported to have survived
- Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh
Bagharzadeh was the wife of Ali Khamenei but despite her husband's exalted position a figure of the lowest of profiles in Iran.
She was almost never photographed and rarely appeared in public, far removed from any notion of a first lady.
Some media reports from inside Iran said she had been killed in the airstrikes. But Mojtaba Khamenei did not mention her as being among the dead and Thursday the Fars news agency said she had survived.
"The wife of the martyred supreme leader is alive, and the initial reports of her martyrdom were incorrect," it said.
- Mojtaba Khamenei
The message from Mojtaba Khamenei aired on Thursday with no video or audio content did nothing to dispel speculation over his condition, after state television and some officials confirmed he had been injured.
The extent of his injuries remains subject to conjecture or and it is also unclear whether it is the severity of his wounds -- rather than security issues -- that are preventing him from appearing in public.
"We know the new so-called, not-so-supreme leader is wounded and likely disfigured," US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told a press conference Thursday.
E.R. Xavier--JDB
