Where Is Mojtaba Khamenei Now? US Intelligence Reports on Injured Iran Supreme Leader

US intelligence officials say Iran's Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is hiding at an undisclosed location inside Iran, where he is believed to be injured and protected by an elaborate courier system that is slowing sensitive negotiations with Washington.

Reports about Khamenei emerged as US and Iranian officials struggled to pin down the details of a potential deal after months of war and a series of US and Israeli strikes under Operation Epic Fury. According to US officials familiar with the matter, those strikes have already killed much of Iran's senior leadership and wounded Mojtaba himself, turning his personal security into a central factor in how, and how quickly, Tehran can respond.

Mojtaba Khamenei Disappears After Operation Epic Fury

Khamenei has not been officially seen or heard in public since before the war began. One official said US and Israeli intelligence gathered from inside the Iranian government made it possible to locate and eliminate much of the senior leadership, driving the remaining officials underground.

Mojtaba was injured in the strikes and is now determined not to meet the same fate as his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled Iran from 1989 until his death on 28 February. Officials describe the current supreme leader as taking the 'most cautious measures' of anyone in the hierarchy, to the point where his own senior lieutenants are kept in the dark about where he is.

At this point, most top Iranian figures 'don't see daylight,' sources briefed on the intelligence say. They are reported to be spending weeks in heavily fortified bunkers, minimising movement and avoiding unnecessary conversations, acutely aware that any electronic trace or routine pattern could make them easier targets.

'Watching them try to figure out how to talk to each other is almost like watching a sitcom. They are completely exasperated,' one US official said. The remark is openly derisive, but it underlines the picture US agencies are presenting of a leadership that is paranoid about its own survival and struggling to manage basic communication.

The White House has not publicly endorsed any of these details. A spokesperson declined to comment on intelligence regarding the supreme leader's whereabouts or Iran's internal communication methods, leaving anonymous officials to fill in the gaps around Mojtaba Khamenei's reported disappearance from public life.

Inside the Courier Network

By design, US officials say, even some of the most senior Iranian insiders do not know exactly where Mojtaba Khamenei is and have no direct means of contacting him. Instead, messages are said to move through a layered network of couriers, each step intended to obscure his precise location.

'This is why you see people saying things like, "The supreme leader has agreed to the framework," or "We're waiting to hear back on the final deal points,"' one official explained. 'Every piece of information he receives is dated and there's a lot of latency to his responses.'

That delay has become a practical obstacle for diplomats. US officials authorised to work with Iran under Donald Trump's administration, according to the sources, have struggled to get clear, timely answers from their Iranian counterparts because those counterparts cannot easily reach the man who must ultimately sign off.

When Washington sends proposed terms or clarifying questions, the responses can take days or longer. US officials argue that this is not solely due to internal debate in Tehran, but because someone literally has to carry the message into the supreme leader's bunker and then carry his answer back out again. In a political system already steeped in secrecy and rigid hierarchy, the extra security layers have turned decision-making into a slow relay.

A senior administration official said on Sunday that the supreme leader had agreed to the contours of the current draft agreement. Trump echoed that line on his Truth Social platform, saying he expected final word 'in the next few days.' Whether Mojtaba Khamenei's courier web can deliver on that timetable is, in reality, another unknown variable.

Power at a Distance

The portrait drawn by US intelligence is of a leader who still holds ultimate authority on paper but now exercises it at arm's length, issuing broad guidance rather than engaging in detailed, real-time negotiation. According to the officials, Khamenei has outlined to subordinates which issues they may negotiate on and which must remain off the table, while the finer points of any agreement risk being lost or delayed as they move through the courier chain.

It is a version of absolute power that looks surprisingly brittle. A system that presents itself as disciplined and unified is, in the US telling, reliant on unnamed couriers and staggered briefings simply to function, even as it faces external military pressure and internal uncertainty.

There is, however, no public confirmation from inside Iran about Khamenei's health, his exact location or the full extent of the bunker network around him. All of the detail available so far rests on US and Israeli intelligence reporting, relayed through unnamed officials whose descriptions of Iranian disarray cannot be independently verified.

Without access to corroborating evidence from within Iran, specific claims about Mojtaba Khamenei's injuries, his movements or the intensity of communication problems in Tehran should be treated with a grain of salt. What US officials are confident to say, though, is that the supreme leader's hidden status has itself become a factor that diplomats must reckon with every time they send a message and wait for a reply.