Mojtaba Khamenei had to be ‘extracted from the rubble’ of hospital after US strikes nearly killed him a second time: report

He just won’t die.

Mojtaba Khamenei was rushed to a Tehran hospital after February strikes targeting his father nearly killed him, only to be “pulled from the rubble” again after the US and Israel bombed the medical center, an Iranian cleric revealed in an interview on Qatari television this week.

After destroying Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s compound in Tehran – which killed the 86-year-old supreme leader and dozens of his top leaders – the allies also reportedly bombed three different hospitals in Tehran on February 28 to start the war.

Young Khamenei, 56, was pulled from the rubble of one of the hospitals, before disappearing to an unknown location – and has not been seen in public or heard his voice since.

“Even after he was injured and taken to hospital, three hospitals in Tehran were bombed,” Mohsen Heydari, a member of the Assembly of Iranian Experts, told Qatar’s Al Araby TV channel on Thursday.

“Mojtaba Khamenei was in the third hospital and was pulled from the rubble.”

The younger Khamenei apparently had no idea that he had been named as the new supreme leader on March 8 until the announcement was publicly broadcast on state television. But once the decision was made, Khamenei, “probably gay,” was “legally and religiously” obligated to make it, Heydari said.

The Assembly of Experts, the body charged with choosing Iran’s new supreme leader, has itself reportedly been a target of the United States and Israel. Its Qom secretariat was bombed, killing eight people and burning reports and recommendations on a new supreme leader.

The members therefore each wrote their vote on paper before being summoned to a secret room, without being informed in advance of the place or the nature of the meeting, a week after the first strikes.

Heidari was the first person to suggest Khamenei’s name during the session – in defiance of President Trump who had warned Iran against choosing the late Khamenei’s son, who would have been even more of a hard-liner than his father.

“Given the position of the enemy, we will not choose and elect anyone as the leader and supreme guide of the Islamic Republic, except Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei,” Heidari recalled.

“We obtained information that Mojtaba Khamenei was healthy and capable of leading, and we determined that he met the requirements of religious qualification, justice and competence to manage the country,” he told the outlet.

Khamenei received 50 votes out of 59 in the meeting – eight voted for Ayatollah Alireza Arafi and one assembly member abstained.

Heidari called Khamenei a “shadow man” in the Qatari interview: he never held a political position in the Iranian state before becoming supreme leader, but reportedly served as an advisor to his father.

Speculation has been rife for months about Khamenei’s health – and whether he will survive. US intelligence reports suggest he was severely disfigured in the attacks.

Last month, President Trump said, “I don’t think he’s dead” when asked about his condition.

“He was very badly injured. The left side of his body, his arm, his leg, everything. He was very badly injured, but I don’t think he’s dead,” he added.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian claimed the supreme leader, out of sight, was “completely” healthy in an interview on Fox News this week while in New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

“We met for about seven hours,” the Iranian president told “Special Report” host Bret Baier of a meeting between the two Iranian leaders last month. “We have had discussions.”