By Parisa Hafezi
DUBAI, March 11 (Reuters) – Iran’s newly-appointed Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was lightly injured but is continuing to operate, an Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday after state television described him as war wounded.
Khamenei has not been seen by Iranians, or issued any public statement or message, since his selection on Sunday by a clerical assembly and is widely rumoured to have been wounded in the Israeli and U.S. strikes.
Seen as a hardliner close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Khamenei was the leading contender to succeed his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the first wave of strikes on February 28.
The official did not give details about when Khamenei was injured or why he had not made any statement to the public since his appointment.
The first air strikes in the war were aimed at decapitating Iran’s leadership, and besides his father, they killed Khamenei’s mother, sister and wife, state television said.
“His Eminence Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei is today the heir to the blood of his martyred father, his martyred mother, his martyred sister and his martyred wife,” a news anchor read out on state television, using Khamenei’s full titles and honorifics.
“He, who is a janbaz of the Ramadan War, inherits the path of the proud and steadfast martyrs of this land,” the anchor added, using an Iranian term for a wounded veteran, and the name Iranian officials have given the current conflict because it is happening during Islam’s fasting month.
Israel’s intelligence assessment is that Khamenei was lightly wounded and that is why he has not been seen in public, a senior Israeli official told Reuters.
The new supreme leader was pushed through with extensive support from the Revolutionary Guards, sources have told Reuters.
Long the head of his father’s office, known in Persian as the beyt, he has had a direct role in running the Iranian state for years. However, he is not well known to ordinary Iranians having made few public speeches or other appearances in the past.
(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Additional Reporting by Reuters Jerusalem Newsroom, Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Andrew Cawthorne)
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