Mojtaba Khamenei breaks silence with militant message, but his whereabouts remain unknown

Khamenei urged Iranians to avoid turning legitimate disagreements into open conflict and to model unity in both word and deed.

By Gila Isaacson, JFeed

Mojtaba Khamenei has issued another written statement, his latest since he disappeared from public view following the US-Israeli strikes that killed his father, and this one carries a message aimed squarely inward: hold together, or the enemy wins.

The statement, published Thursday on an account in his name, came with no video, no audio, and no confirmation of where Iran’s supreme leader actually is.

Khamenei has not appeared in public since succeeding his father Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, in the opening salvo of the war.

Since reportedly sustaining injuries during those strikes, he has limited his communications to written statements, with no direct public appearances.

Thursday’s message struck a notably internal tone.

Describing what he called unprecedented national unity in the face of war, he called on Iran’s political and intellectual elites, as well as parliament members, to guard that unity at all costs.

“The enemy’s plan, following its failures on the battlefield, has shifted to economic pressure, a propaganda and political siege, and above all, an attempt to create division and social fragmentation in order to subdue the people,” he wrote, according to the statement.

He urged Iranians to avoid turning legitimate disagreements into open conflict and to model unity in both word and deed.

He also called for a series of governance reforms once the war ends and urged parliament to align fully with the government in loyalty to Islamic rule.

Netanyahu said in May that he believes Khamenei is alive but hiding.

“He’s holed up in some bunker or in some secret place. Mojtaba is trying to exert his authority,” the Israeli prime minister said, adding that this authority may be diminishing.

Questions continue to mount inside Iran itself over his ability to effectively manage the country’s affairs.

Rumors circulating within Iran include claims that Mojtaba is operating from hiding in Russia or that he is effectively controlled by the Revolutionary Guards. None have been confirmed.

Iran’s foreign ministry has acknowledged that Tehran and Washington have reached understandings on many issues but said a final agreement was not imminent.

Against that backdrop, Khamenei’s call for unity reads as much as a domestic political maneuver as a wartime rallying cry, an attempt by an unseen leader to hold together a country under enormous strain, without showing his face.