The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Israeli Mossad and other intelligence services around the world were monitoring whether Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, would follow his father's tradition and deliver a New Year's address on Friday, the Persian New Year, Axios reports today.
As the holiday passed with only Mojtaba's written statement, the mystery surrounding his physical condition, whereabouts, and his role in Iran's war effort deepened.
It is not surprising that Mojtaba has remained in the shadows. Since assassinating his father, former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Israel has made it clear that Mojtaba is now at the top of its target list.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegsett also claimed that Mojtaba was "wounded and likely disfigured" in the attack that killed his father.
But after three weeks without even a pre-recorded video message, Mojtaba's silence is growing louder, according to Axios.
The media outlet states that the United States (US) and Israel have intelligence indicating that Mojtaba is still alive - for example, evidence that Iranian officials have tried to schedule face-to-face meetings with him (unsuccessfully, due to security reasons).
The mystery surrounding Mojtaba was also raised during several intelligence briefings by US President Donald Trump.
President Trump's national security team is still trying to assess who is really in charge in Tehran, a US official said.
"We have no evidence that he is actually the one giving the orders," a senior Israeli official told Axios about Mojtaba.
"This is extremely strange. We don't believe the Iranians would go through all this effort to elect a dead man as supreme leader, but at the same time we have no evidence that he has taken the helm," said one US official.
Mojtaba was declared Iran's supreme leader on March 9 after his hardline allies rallied around him to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei.
His public reaction was limited to a written statement on Telegram three days later, further fueling speculation about how badly he was wounded during the Israeli attack on his father's residence.
American and Israeli intelligence services saw security chief Ali Larijani as Iran's de facto leader until Israel assassinated him last Tuesday.
"Their leaders are all gone. The next group of leaders are gone too. And the next group of leaders are mostly gone. And now nobody wants to be a leader there anymore. We have a problem. We want to talk to them, but there's nobody to talk to. You know what, that suits us," Trump said Friday.
Israeli officials claim that all of Iran's top leaders are moving around like wanted persons - moving from one safe house to another and avoiding digital communications.
Mojtaba's Telegram channel published a written message for Nowruz calling for unity, along with several photos of the new supreme leader.
A US official said the CIA was trying to determine whether the photos were recent.
The official noted that Iranian President Masoud Pazakhstani released a video message for Nowruz, despite threats to his own security.
"We would expect to see Mojtaba as well, at least in some form. He didn't take advantage of that opportunity and tradition. That's a big red flag," the US official added.
Raz Zimit, director of the Iran Program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said there was no evidence that Mojtaba was not functional, even if the injury and security situation made it difficult for him to fully exercise his authority.
"In the current exceptional circumstances, he should not be expected to appear in public, and it is possible that his injury does not even allow him to release a recorded video message so as not to reveal the severity of his condition to the public," Zimit said.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Defense Intelligence Agency Director General James Adams testified Thursday in a confidential hearing before the House Intelligence Committee that the Iranian regime is going through a deep crisis of command and control but there are no signs of imminent collapse, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
Two senior Israeli officials claimed that Larijani's assassination had widened a power vacuum, largely filled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Mojtaba's rise was made possible by his close ties to the IRGC, which has enormous influence over Iran's economy, politics and security and which Israeli officials say now de facto runs the country.
"The IRGC is taking over Iran and they are crazy. They are very ideological and they are ready to die and meet the elder Khamenei," one senior Arab official told Axios.
Ratcliffe and Adams stressed during the hearing that it was too early to know whether the regime could survive the war and the loss of so many senior leaders.
Israel has made it clear that laying the groundwork for regime change is one of the goals of its war.
"We think that the more we increase the external pressure on them, the more internal pressure will increase. The more this happens, the greater the chance that the regime will collapse," said a senior Israeli official.
Some critics of the war argued that removing the old guard only paved the way for even harder-line leaders, like Mojtaba himself.
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