The UK Times reported on Monday that Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is “incapacitated and receiving medical treatment in the holy city of Qom.” The Times report was based on “a diplomatic memo understood to be based on American and Israeli intelligence and shared with Gulf allies.” The memo said Khamenei is suffering from a “severe condition” and is “unable to be involved in any decision making by the regime.”
Qom is a provincial capital and one of the largest cities in Iran, located about 85 miles south of Tehran. The city has historic and religious significance to the Shia branch of Islam and boasts the largest Shiite madrassa (religious school) in Iran. Qom was the scene of the Iranian Army’s surrender to the Islamic revolution led by the first Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1979. Qom was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Monday, allegedly killing at least five people. According to local officials, the target of the strike was a “residential building.” The diplomatic memo viewed by the Times evidently did not specify exactly where Khamenei is receiving treatment in the city of Qom. Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, is the third Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, having been hastily installed in the office on March 9 to succeed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was liquidated in the opening hours of Operation Epic Fury on February 28.
