Cautious of assassination, Iran’s supreme chief largely speaks along with his commanders by way of a trusted aide now, suspending digital communications to make it more durable to search out him, three Iranian officers accustomed to his emergency battle plans say.
Ensconced in a bunker, the supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has picked an array of replacements down his chain of miliary command in case extra of his valued lieutenants are killed.
And in a outstanding transfer, the officers add, Ayatollah Khamenei has even named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him ought to he be killed, as effectively — maybe essentially the most telling illustration of the precarious second he and his three-decade rule are dealing with.
Ayatollah Khamenei has taken a unprecedented sequence of steps to protect the Islamic Republic ever since Israel launched a sequence of shock assaults final Friday.
Although solely every week outdated, the Israeli strikes are the most important army assault on Iran since its battle with Iraq within the Eighties, and the impact on the nation’s capital, Tehran, has been notably fierce. In only some days, the Israeli assaults have been extra intense and have prompted extra harm in Tehran than Saddam Hussein did in his total eight-year battle towards Iran.
Iran seems to have overcome its preliminary shock, reorganizing sufficient to launch every day counterstrikes of its personal on Israel, hitting a hospital, the Haifa oil refinery, spiritual buildings and houses.
Iran’s prime officers are additionally quietly making preparations for a variety of outcomes because the battle intensifies and as President Trump considers whether or not to enter the battle, in keeping with the Iranian officers, who insisted on anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to talk publicly concerning the ayatollah’s plans.
Peering inside Iran’s intently guarded management will be troublesome, however its chain of command nonetheless appears to be functioning, regardless of being hit exhausting, and there aren’t any apparent indicators of dissent within the political ranks, in keeping with the officers and to diplomats in Iran.
Ayatollah Khamenei, 86, is conscious that both Israel or the USA may attempt to assassinate him, an finish he would view as martyrdom, the officers stated. Given the chance, the ayatollah has made the bizarre determination to instruct his nation’s Meeting of Consultants, the clerical physique answerable for appointing the supreme chief, to decide on his successor swiftly from the three names he has offered.
Usually, the method of appointing a brand new supreme chief may take months, with clerics selecting and selecting from their very own lists of names. However with the nation now at battle, the officers stated, the ayatollah desires to make sure a fast, orderly transition and to protect his legacy.
“The highest precedence is the preservation of the state,” stated Vali Nasr, an Iran skilled and professor of worldwide affairs at Johns Hopkins College. “It’s all calculative and pragmatic.”
Succession has lengthy been an exceedingly delicate and thorny matter, seldom mentioned publicly past speculations and rumors in political and spiritual circles. The supreme chief has huge powers: He’s the commander in chief of the Iran Armed Forces, in addition to the pinnacle of the judiciary, the legislature and the chief department. He’s additionally a Vali Faqih, that means essentially the most senior guardian of the Shiite religion.
Ayatollah Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, additionally a cleric and near the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, who was rumored to be a front-runner, just isn’t among the many candidates, the officers stated. Iran’s former conservative president, Ibrahim Raisi, was additionally thought of a front-runner earlier than he was killed in a helicopter crash in 2024.
Because the battle began, Ayatollah Khamenei has delivered to the general public two recorded video messages, towards a backdrop of brown curtains and subsequent to the Iranian flag. “The folks of Iran will stand towards a pressured battle,” he stated, vowing to not give up.
In regular occasions, Ayatollah Khamenei lives and works in a extremely safe compound in central Tehran known as the “beit rahbari” — or chief’s home — and he seldom leaves the premises, apart from particular events like delivering a sermon. Senior officers and army commanders come to him for weekly conferences, and speeches for the general public are staged from the compound.
His retreat to a bunker exhibits how furiously Tehran has been struck in a battle with Israel that Iranian officers say is unfolding on two fronts.
One is being waged from the air, with Israeli airstrikes on army bases, nuclear amenities, vital power infrastructure, commanders and nuclear scientists of their condo buildings in tightly packed residential neighborhoods. A few of Iran’s prime commanders have been summarily worn out.
A whole bunch of individuals have additionally been killed and 1000’s of others injured, with civilians slain throughout Iran, human rights teams inside and out of doors the nation say.
However Iranian officers say that they’re preventing on a second entrance, as effectively, with covert Israeli operatives and collaborators scattered on the bottom throughout Iran’s huge terrain, launching drones at vital power and army constructions. The worry of Israeli infiltration among the many prime ranks of Iran’s safety and intelligence equipment has rattled the Iranian energy construction, even Ayatollah Khamenei, officers say.
“It’s clear that we had a large safety and intelligence breach; there is no such thing as a denying this,” stated Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Iran’s speaker of Parliament, Gen. Mohammad Ghalibaf, in an audio recording analyzing the battle. “Our senior commanders have been all assassinated inside one hour.”
Iran’s “largest failure was not discovering” the months of planning Israeli operatives had performed to convey missiles and drone elements into the nation to arrange for the assault, he added.
The nation’s management has been preoccupied with three central issues, officers say: an assassination try towards Ayatollah Khamenei; the USA’ coming into the battle; and extra debilitating assaults towards Iran’s vital infrastructure, like energy crops, oil and gasoline refineries and dams.
Ought to the USA be a part of the battle, the stakes would multiply considerably. Israel says that it desires to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, however consultants say that solely the USA has the bomber — and the large 30,000-pound bomb — that is perhaps able to penetrating the mountain the place Iran has constructed its most crucial nuclear enrichment amenities, Fordo.
Iran has threatened to retaliate by attacking American targets within the area, however that will solely threat a wider, and probably extra devastating, battle for Iran and its adversaries.
The worry of assassination and infiltration inside Iran’s ranks is so widespread that the Ministry of Intelligence introduced a sequence of safety protocols, telling officers to cease utilizing cellphones or any digital gadgets to speak. It has additionally ordered all senior authorities officers and army commanders to stay beneath floor, in keeping with two Iranian officers.
Virtually day-after-day, the Ministry of Intelligence or the Armed Forces concern directives for the general public to report suspicious people and automobile actions, and to chorus from taking pictures and movies of assaults on delicate websites.
The nation has additionally been in a communication blackout with the skin world. The web has been practically shut down, and incoming worldwide calls have been blocked. The Ministry of Telecommunications stated in a press release that these measures have been to search out enemy operatives on the bottom and to disable their means to launch assaults.
“The safety equipment has concluded that, on this vital time, the web is being abused to hurt the lives and livelihoods of civilians,” stated Ali Ahmadinia, the communications director for President Masoud Pezeshkian. “We’re safeguarding the safety of our nation by shutting down the web.”
On Friday, the Supreme Nationwide Safety Council took it a step additional, saying that anybody working with the enemy should flip themselves into the authorities by the top of the day on Sunday, hand over their army gear and “return to the arms of the folks.” It warned that anybody found to be working with the enemy after Sunday would face execution.
Tehran has largely emptied out after orders by Israel to evacuate a number of extremely populated districts. Movies of the town present highways and desolate streets which are usually clogged with bumper-to-bumper visitors. In interviews, residents of Tehran who remained within the metropolis stated safety forces had arrange checkpoints on each freeway, on smaller roads and at entry factors out and in of the town to conduct advert hoc searches.
Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a reformist politician and a former vp, stated in a phone interview from Tehran that Israel had miscalculated Iranians’ response to the battle. Mr. Abtahi stated that the deep political factions which are usually in sharp disagreement with each other had rallied behind the supreme chief and centered the nation on defending itself from an exterior menace.
The battle has “softened the divisions we had, each amongst one another and with most people,” Mr. Abtahi stated.
Israel’s assaults have set off a resurgence of nationalism amongst many Iranians, inside and out of doors the nation, together with many vital of the federal government. That sense of widespread trigger has emerged in a torrent of social media posts and statements by outstanding human rights and political activists, physicians, nationwide athletes, artists and celebrities. “Like household, we might not all the time agree however Iran’s soil is our pink line,” wrote Saeid Ezzatollahi, a participant with Iran’s nationwide soccer squad, Staff Melli, on social media.
Accommodations, guesthouses and marriage ceremony halls have opened their doorways freed from cost to shelter displaced folks fleeing Tehran, in keeping with Iranian information media and movies on social media. Psychologists are providing free digital remedy periods in posts on their social media pages. Supermarkets are giving reductions, and at bakeries, clients are limiting their very own purchases of recent bread to 1 loaf so that everybody standing in line can have bread, in keeping with movies shared on social media. Volunteers are providing companies, like operating errands to checking on disabled and older residents.
“We’re seeing a stupendous unity amongst our folks,” stated Reza, 42, a businessman, in a phone interview close to the Caspian Sea, the place he takes shelter along with his household. Utilizing just one title to keep away from scrutiny by the federal government, he added: “It’s exhausting to clarify the temper. We’re scared, however we’re additionally giving one another solidarity, love and kindness. We’re in it collectively. That is an assault on our nation, on Iran.”
Narges Mohammadi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the nation’s most outstanding human rights activist, has spent a long time out and in jail, pushing for democratic change in Iran. However even she warned towards the assaults on her nation, telling the BBC this previous week that “Democracy can not come by way of violence and battle.”