Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran's newly appointed supreme leader, survived the Israeli strike that killed his father after stepping outside their compound shortly
before the attack, according to a report citing leaked audio from an internal Iranian meeting. The audio, reported by The Telegraph, details a discussion among Iranian officials about the February 28 strike on the Tehran compound of Ali Khamenei, Iran's longtime supreme leader. According to the recording, Khamenei's son had been with his father shortly before the attack but left the building minutes before the missiles struck. "God's will was that Mojtaba had to go out to the yard to do something and then return," Mazaher Hosseini, the head of protocol in the elder Khamenei's office, told Iranian officials in a meeting on March 12, according to the report. "He was outside and was heading upstairs when they struck the building with a missile," Hosseini said. "His wife, Haddad, was martyred instantly."
The strike was carried out as part of Operation Epic Fury, an Israeli campaign targeting Iran's senior leadership and military infrastructure.
According to the leaked remarks, Israel used several Blue Sparrow ballistic missiles to attack the compound. At least three missiles were fired, Hosseini told the gathering of senior clerics and commanders from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
One missile struck the section of the compound where the elder Khamenei was located. Another hit an upper floor that included Mojtaba Khamenei's residence, while a third struck the home of his brother-in-law, Misbah al-Huda Bagheri Kani.
"The missile was so powerful that it went downstairs where Misbah was, it went to Misbah's room," Hosseini said. "The missiles were struck in a way that cut his head in half." The elder Khamenei was killed in the strike, along with several senior officers and family members.
Hosseini said the younger Khamenei suffered only "a minor injury to his leg," echoing earlier reports that he had been wounded but survived. Another son of the late leader, Mostafa Khamenei, survived the attack along with his wife and emerged from the destruction "unharmed," Hosseini said.
The official also described the condition of the body of Mohammad Shirazi, an Iranian military chief who was killed in the strike. "He was blown to pieces — they could find nothing from him, and at the end they found a few kilos of flesh and identified it as his body," Hosseini said in the recording.
The leaked audio surfaced as speculation has grown about the younger Khamenei's condition and whereabouts. He has not been seen publicly since the war began.
Donald Trump said on Monday that American officials were uncertain whether the Iranian leader was still alive. "A lot of people are saying that he's badly disfigured. They're saying that he lost his leg, one leg, and he's been hurt very badly. Other people are saying he's dead," Trump told reporters.
"We haven't seen" him "at all," Trump said, adding that US officials do not know "if he's dead or not. Nobody's seen him, which is unusual."
