Sympathy for the killed Khamenei is evoked with photos of his allegedly killed granddaughter. But what exactly is known about this story?

Ali Khamenei with his granddaughter. The AI-generated image is widely circulated by pro-state Iranian groups.

Ali Hosseini Khamenei was born on April 19, 1939, in Mashhad in northeastern Iran into a religious family. His father, Ayatollah Sayyid Javad Khamenei, was a Shiite theologian of Azerbaijani origin; his mother, Khadijeh Mirdamadi, also came from a spiritual background.

Ali grew up in a large family: he had three brothers and a sister, Badri. The latter was married to opposition figure Ali Tehrani. In the 1980s, after a conflict with the authorities of the Islamic Republic, she and her husband left Iran and went into exile (she lived in Iraq, later returned to Iran in 1995).

In 1964, Ali Khamenei married Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, who also came from a religious family from Mashhad. Unlike many wives of political leaders, she remained out of the public sphere for decades: she hardly appeared in the media and did not perform representative public functions.

Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh died following an attack on Tehran. She was severely wounded during the same bombing that killed her husband and, according to Iranian media, outlived him by one day.

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Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh. Photo: Buzzweekly.co.uk

What do the children do?

In his marriage with Mansoureh, Khamenei had six children — four sons and two daughters.

The first son, Mostafa, was born in 1965. He became a Shiite cleric. It is known that he is married to the daughter of conservative theologian Azizollah Khoshvaght, which strengthened the family's ties with traditional religious circles.

The second son, Mojtaba, was born in 1969. He also has a religious education. For many years, he was named as his father's possible successor as Supreme Leader. Mojtaba is married to the daughter of Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, former speaker of the Iranian parliament. This is one of the most significant marital alliances within the conservative elite.

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Mojtaba Khamenei in 2019. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Bloomberg reported in January that Mojtaba Khamenei may oversee substantial financial assets. Reports occasionally surface in the media regarding his potential access to foreign accounts and real estate, but official Tehran does not confirm this information, labeling it as propaganda. In 2019, the US imposed personal sanctions on him.

The third son, Masoud (born in 1974), is married to the daughter of Ayatollah Mohsen Kharazi. There is very little public information about his activities, and he keeps a low profile.

The youngest son, Meysam, like his brothers, received a religious education. He is also married. However, no specific information, not even his date of birth, is publicly available.

His daughters — Bushra and Hoda — remain entirely private figures. It is assumed that they were born in the 1980s. Regarding their family life, it is only known that they married representatives of Iran's spiritual and political elites.

What is known about the grandchildren?

The exact number of Ali Khamenei's grandchildren remains unknown: neither Iranian authorities nor the Ayatollah's own office have published detailed information about his descendants.

Most often, the family of his second son, Mojtaba Khamenei, is featured in international media. In some publications, it is mentioned that he has three children — sons born in 2007 and 2017, and a daughter born in 2013.

There is no specific and verified information publicly available regarding the children of Khamenei's other sons and daughters, which further underscores the private nature of the leader's family life.

Who was killed?

Amidst the latest escalation of the conflict, reports emerged from Iranian state media about the death of Ali Khamenei's relatives as a result of strikes on Tehran. According to these reports, the Supreme Leader's daughter, his granddaughter, as well as his son-in-law and daughter-in-law were killed. However, specific names, ages, and exact circumstances were not publicly disclosed.

It is precisely the lack of details that creates uncertainty. Since Khamenei has two daughters and four sons, without clarification it is impossible to say exactly which branch of the family is being referred to.

If a daughter and her husband were indeed killed, then the granddaughter could theoretically have been their child. If the report concerned the family of one of the sons, then the "daughter-in-law" could have been the son's wife, and the granddaughter — their daughter.

However, the age difference in any case seems very large — implying an anomalous 86-year gap between the 'granddaughter' and 'grandfather'.

It's also possible that there was no killed granddaughter at all — in recent days, Iranian propagandists have been flooding the internet with countless fakes.

There is no official confirmation of a specific version, and independent sources have not yet published more detailed information.

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