Iran’s new leader has never been tested. He now faces an existential battle

A leader who has never been fully tested takes the helm in Iran when its theocracy faces its greatest test in five decades.

Continuity and connections have pulled Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, to the top after the assassination of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the first salvos of this war.

But Iran’s third supreme leader since its 1979 revolution takes charge as the Islamic Republic confronts an existential battle.

Large crowds, the foot soldiers of the revolution, took to the streets immediately to shout “Allahu Akbar” – “God is greatest” – to celebrate his selection by the Assembly of Experts, a body of 88 Shia Muslim clerics.

All security forces pledged to serve their new commander-in-chief until their “last drop of blood”.

State TV showed pictures of the first missiles fired in his name with a message scrawled on its side – “At your service, Seyyed Mojtaba.”

Yet – from the safety of their apartments – some of the many protesters who filled the streets in January denouncing his father as a “dictator” and calling for his death were last night heard shouting “Death to Mojtaba!”

He was also reported to be injured but there have been no details, nor even any sign of him since.

And it’s deeply personal for US President Donald Trump, who keeps making it clear he doesn’t take kindly to those who take issue with his orders.

As speculation swirled over the successor, Trump declared more than once that Ali Khamenei’s hardline son was “unacceptable”.

Now he’s warning that Mojtaba Khamenei “won’t last long”. He is in Israel’s sights too, with Defence Minister Israel Katz calling him “an unequivocal target”.

So Khamenei may still remain in the shadows for a while.

It will deepen the mystery around this reclusive cleric.

There’s no record of any public speeches, he’s rarely appeared in public, and he’s never held any formal government jobs. His photograph never appeared alongside the ubiquitous portraits of his father.

The late ayatollah was reported to have ruled him out of the succession, wanting to avoid the hereditary system of the monarchy ousted in the 1979 revolution.

Most Iranians have never even heard his voice.