Questions are mounting over the true condition of Iran’s newly installed Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, after reports emerged that he is lying in a coma in a Tehran hospital — even as the Islamic Republic published what it described as a written message authored by him.
The 56-year-old, son of the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is said to be receiving intensive care at Sina University Hospital in the Iranian capital’s historic quarter. An entire section of the building has reportedly been sealed off and placed under heavy security. Trauma teams at the hospital are said to have told an insider that Khamenei is in a “very serious” condition, under the care of prominent Iranian surgeon Mohammad Reza Zafarghajian.
The details were passed to an Iranian dissident based in London via discreet communications, circumventing the Islamic regime’s internet blackout. According to The Sun, which reported the source’s account, the information included stark details of the injuries sustained. “One or two of his legs have been cut off. His liver or stomach has also ruptured. He is apparently in a coma as well,” the source is reported to have said.
Khamenei is believed to have suffered the injuries in an air strike, losing at least one leg and sustaining severe internal injuries, possibly to the stomach or liver. It remains unclear whether he was wounded on the same day his 86-year-old father died, on 28 February.
Despite those reported circumstances, Iranian state media has continued to present Khamenei as a functioning head of state. A statement broadcast on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting channel, accompanied by an image of the Supreme Leader against a waving Iranian flag, was attributed directly to him. In it, demands were issued for all US bases in the region to be closed, with the declaration that Iran “will not refrain from avenging the blood of its martyrs.”
The statement also warned that the Islamic Republic would continue striking facilities in Gulf states, while expressing a belief in what it described as “friendship with neighbours.” Iran’s enemies were told the regime would “seek compensation” or “destroy their assets accordingly.” The so-called “resistance front” was celebrated within the address as an “inseparable part of the Islamic revolution’s values.”
The apparent contradiction between the regime’s public messaging and the accounts emerging from inside the hospital is likely to intensify scrutiny of Tehran’s communications as the conflict in the region continues. Whether independent verification of Khamenei’s condition will prove possible, given the country’s information restrictions, remains to be seen.
