A woman walks past a banner bearing a portrait of Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei in Tehran on July 8. [Reuters]
A woman walks past a banner bearing a portrait of Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei in Tehran on July 8. [Reuters]

The CIA and Israel's Mossad are throwing their full resources into locating Iran's new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, Britain's The Times reported Monday.

Mojtaba was appointed supreme leader on March 8, days after his father, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, was killed in an airstrike on the first day of the war, Feb. 28. In the five months since, he has not been seen in public or heard in any audio recording, citing security concerns — and he did not appear at his father's funeral.

The Times said tracking down the whereabouts of the closely guarded Mojtaba Khamenei has become the top priority for American and Israeli intelligence agencies.

Even these agencies, among the most capable in the world, have struggled five months into his tenure, and the reason is his total communications blackout. Mojtaba has made no calls on a mobile phone and has not used a laptop computer.

The Times speculated that he suffered serious facial injuries in the Feb. 28 airstrike that killed his father, and has since been hiding in a deep underground bunker, unable to venture into daylight for fear of detection by American spy satellites.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has claimed to have met Mojtaba Khamenei in person, though it remains unclear whether that is true.

In the case of Ali Khamenei, the US National Security Agency and Israel's Unit 8200 demonstrated their capabilities by hacking traffic surveillance cameras across Tehran to track his movements — but the current situation appears far more challenging. With cyber-tracking yielding no results, the agencies are said to be relying less on wiretapping and surveillance technology and more on human intelligence, or HUMINT. Current tracking efforts are focused on whether Mojtaba is alive and, if so, on the most likely hiding spots: underground tunnels beneath Tehran and a military bunker near Qom, a religious city in central Iran.

Rami Igra, a former Mossad department chief, told the newspaper that "the challenge Israel faces is the same as finding hostages in Gaza," adding that Israeli intelligence "did not rely on HUMINT to track the hostages — they put listening devices in every bathroom — and ultimately failed."

He then said that even if Mojtaba does not use a phone, "if he is alive he will be using some means of communication, like small pieces of paper, and there will be multiple layers of couriers delivering them." Just as one of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's couriers was tracked by the CIA, Mossad is similarly working to identify and track those exchanging messages with Mojtaba Khamenei.

Igra cautioned, however, that "vetting within Iran of those close to Mojtaba is very strict, and even within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, perhaps only two or three people know how to contact him — making this extremely difficult."

A body double presents another obstacle to the search. Avner Avraham, a former Mossad lieutenant colonel, said that "even the people preparing Mojtaba's meals do not know whether the food they are making is for the real Mojtaba," adding, "They may believe they served the supreme leader, but it was most likely a body double."

Asked why at least an audio recording could not be released even if his appearance remained hidden, Avraham said exposure remained a risk because "the type of recorder used and the location of the recording can be extracted from an audio file."

The Times noted that even if Mojtaba Khamenei's location were determined, deciding what to do next would pose its own dilemma. A former senior US intelligence official said, "Unless there is a very strong conviction that a white knight leader committed to Iran's democratic future will emerge, what is really to be gained by eliminating the current leader?"


yckim6452@heraldcorp.com