He just won’t die. Mojtaba Khamenei was rushed to a Tehran hospital after the February attacks on his father nearly killed him, only to be “pulled out of the rubble” again after the United States and Israel bombed the medical center, an Iranian cleric revealed in an interview with Qatari television this week. After destroying Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s compound in Tehran, which killed the 86-year-old supreme leader and dozens of his top leaders, the allies also bombed three different hospitals in Tehran on February 28 to start the war. Mojtaba Khamenei succeeded his father Ali Khamenei as supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. ISNA/AFP via Getty Images Young Khamenei, 56, was pulled from under the rubble of one of the hospitals, before disappearing to an unknown location, and has not been seen in public nor has his voice been heard since. “Even after he was wounded and taken to the hospital, three hospitals in Tehran were bombed,” Mohsen Heydari, a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, told Qatari television network Al Araby on Thursday. “Mojtaba Khamenei was in the third hospital and they pulled him out of the rubble.” The younger Khamenei also apparently had no idea that he had been elected on March 8 as the new supreme leader until the announcement was broadcast publicly on state television. But once the decision was made, the “probably gay” Khamenei was “legally and religiously” obligated to make it, Heydari said. The Assembly of Experts itself, the body tasked with electing Iran’s new supreme leader, was reported to be a target of the United States and Israel. His Qom Secretariat was bombed, killing eight people and burning reports and recommendations on a new supreme leader. Thus, each of the members wrote their vote on a piece of paper before being summoned to a secret room, without being informed in advance of the location or nature of the meeting, a week after the first attacks. Mohsen Al-Haidari was among those chosen to elect the new supreme leader. Al-Arabi – News/Youtube Heidari was the first person to suggest Khamenei’s name during the session, challenging President Trump, who had warned Iran not to elect the late Khamenei’s son, who was reportedly even more of a hardliner than his father. “Given the position of the enemy, we will not and will not elect anyone as the supreme leader and guide of the Islamic Republic except Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei,” Heidari recalled saying. “We obtained information that Mojtaba Khamenei was healthy and capable of leading, and we determined that he met the requirements of religious qualification, justice and competence to manage the country,” he told the outlet. A satellite image shows a destroyed residential complex belonging to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran. via REUTERS Khamenei received 50 of 59 votes during the meeting: eight voted for Ayatollah Alireza Arafi and one assembly member abstained. Heidari called Khamenei a “shadow man” in the interview in Qatar: He never held political office within the Iranian state before becoming supreme leader, but reportedly served as an advisor to his father. Speculation has raged for months about Khamenei’s health and whether he is even alive. US intelligence reports have suggested that he was severely disfigured in the attacks. Last month, President Trump said “I don’t think he’s dead” when asked about his condition. “He was very seriously injured. The left side of his body, his arm, his leg, everything. He was very seriously injured, but I don’t think he’s dead,” he added. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian claimed that the supreme leader, who is out of sight, was “completely” healthy in an interview on Fox News this week while in New York City for the UN General Assembly. “We met for about seven hours,” the Iranian president told “Special Report” host Bret Baier of a meeting between the two Iranian leaders last month. “We held conversations.”
