Modschtaba Khamenei has not yet appeared in public.Image: keystone
Mar 21, 2026, 4:56 p.mMar 21, 2026, 4:56 p.m
Moschtaba Khamenei has been Iran’s new supreme leader for almost two weeks, but he has not yet made a public appearance. This fuels speculation about his health, his whereabouts and his actual role in the war. According to the news portal “Axios” The United States and Israel have intelligence information indicating that Moschtaba is still alive. There are indications that officials tried to arrange personal meetings with him.
“Axios” quoted a US official as saying: “This is beyond strange. We don’t think the Iranians would have gone to all this trouble to appoint a dead person as supreme leader, but at the same time we have no evidence that he took over.”
The Israeli news portal “ynet”, in turn, cites a security official who says Khamenei is alive but possibly injured. There is a high probability that he is conscious but cannot appear in public. The Revolutionary Guards would distribute communications on his behalf. “Something very strange is happening there,” said the official.
Meanwhile, a new message appeared on an X-account attributed to Khamenei. It says that he drove anonymously through Tehran in a taxi to listen to people’s conversations – a method that he claims to be more informative than surveys. Observers in Iran consider this scenario not very credible and suspect that the Revolutionary Guards deliberately wanted to present the new leader as close to the people. (sda/dpa)