Since the beginning of the exchange of military attacks with Israel on June 13, Iranian authorities have been concerned about three central questions: an attempted murder against the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; the American entrance to the war; and damage to national critical infrastructure, such as energy plants, oil and gas refineries and dams. Tehran adopted a protocol to prevent more political and military leaders from being killed – and reinforced him after the US offensive against the centers of his nuclear program on Saturday.
Afraid of being murdered, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei now communicates mainly with his commanders through a trusted advisor. Khamenei suspended electronic communications to make their location difficult, three Iranian authorities familiar with his emergency war plans.
Fear of murder and infiltration of Iran’s ranks is so widespread that the Ministry of Intelligence has announced a series of security protocols, instructing authorities to stop using mobile phones or any electronic devices to communicate. It also ordered high government officials and military commanders to remain underground, two Iranian authorities said.
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Almost every day, the Ministry of Intelligence or the Armed Forces make guidelines for the public to report individuals and suspicious vehicle movements, and refrain from taking pictures and recording videos of attacks on sensitive locations.
The country is also in a blackout with the abroad. The internet was practically disconnected and the international calls received were blocked. The Ministry of Telecommunications stated in a statement that these measures aimed to locate enemy agents on land and disable their ability to launch attacks.
“The security apparatus concluded that, at this critical moment, the internet is being used abusively to harm civilian life and support,” said Ali Ahmadinia, director of communications of President Masoud Pezeshkian. “We are safeguarding the security of our country by turning off the internet.”
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On Friday, the Supreme National Security Council went a step further, announcing that anyone who worked with the enemy should surrender to the authorities by the end of Sunday, deliver their military equipment and “return to the arms of the people.” He warned that anyone discovered in this role after Sunday would be performed.
Khamenei has taken an extraordinary series of measures to preserve the Islamic Republic since Israel launched a series of surprise attacks on June 13.
Guarded on a bunker, the Supreme Leader chose a series of substitutes in his military chain if others of his lieutenants are killed. In a remarkable movement, the authorities added, Khamenei even named three senior clerics as candidates for his succession if he is also killed – perhaps the most revealing illustration of the critical moment he and his three -decades government face.
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Although they have occurred just a week ago, Israeli attacks have been the largest military offensive to Iran since the war with Iraq in the 1980s, and the effect on the country’s capital, Tehran, has been particularly violent. In just a few days, Israeli attacks were more intense and caused more damage than Saddam Hussein throughout their eight -year war against the country.
Iran seemed to have surpassed the initial shock, reorganizing enough to launch daily counterattacks against Israel, hitting a hospital, the Haifa oil refinery, religious buildings and homes.
But then the United States also entered the war. US President Donald Trump announced at the end of Saturday that the American military had bombed three Iran’s nuclear facilities, including the Uranium Enrichment Center in Fordow, significantly expanding the conflict.
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“Our goal was to destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and end the world’s number 1 nuclear threat in sponsorship of terrorism,” Trump said in a White House speech on Saturday night.
The successor of Ayatola
It can be difficult to get information about Iranian leadership, which is kept confidential, but by the end of last week, its chain of command still seemed to be working, although it was hard hit. There were no obvious signs of dissent in political ranks, according to authorities and diplomats in Iran.
Khamenei, 86, is aware that Israel or the United States can try to murder him, an end he would consider a martyrdom, authorities said. Given this possibility, Ayatollah made the unusual decision to instruct the assembly of experts in his country, the clerical body responsible for appointing the supreme leader, to choose his successor quickly from the three names he provided.
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Usually, the process of appointing a new supreme leader can take months, with clerics choosing names from their own lists. But with the country now at war, authorities said, Ayatollah wants to guarantee a quick and ordained transition and preserve their legacy.
“The main priority is the preservation of the state,” said Vali Nasr, expert in Iran and professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s all calculating and pragmatic.”
Succession has been an extremely delicate and thorny theme, rarely discussed publicly, and is the subject of speculation and rumors in political and religious circles. The Supreme Leader has huge powers: he is the commander of the Armed Forces of Iran, as well as the head of the judiciary, the legislature and the executive. He is also a Vali Faqih, that is, the oldest guardian of Shiite faith.
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Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, also a cleric and close to Iran’s revolutionary guard, who would be a favorites, is not among the candidates, the authorities said. Former Conservative Iran President Ibrahim Raisi was also considered one of the favorites before he died in a helicopter accident in 2024.
Since the beginning of the war, Aiatolah has transmitted to the public two recorded video messages, with brown curtains in the background and next to the Iranian flag.
“The people of Iran will oppose a forced war,” he said, promising not to surrender.
In normal times, Khamenei lives and works in a highly safe complex in downtown Tehran, called “Beit Rahbari” – or the leader’s house – and rarely leaves the place, except on special occasions, such as to make a sermon. High employees and military commanders are looking for weekly meetings, and speeches to the public are staged in the complex.
His retreat to a bunker demonstrates the fury with which Tehran was hit by a war with Israel who, according to Iranian authorities, unfolds on two fronts.
One of them is being waged, with Israeli air attacks against military bases, nuclear facilities, critical energy infrastructure, nuclear commanders and scientists in their apartment buildings in residential neighborhoods. Some of the main Iranian commanders were summarily eliminated.
Hundreds of people were also killed and thousands were injured, with civilians murdered throughout Iran, human rights groups say inside and outside the country.
But Iranian authorities claim that they are also fighting a second front, with secret Israeli agents and collaborators spread throughout Iranian territory, launching drones against military and critical energy structures. The fear of Israeli infiltration among the high levels of Iran’s safety and intelligence apparatus has shook Iranian power structure, even Khamenei, authorities say.
“It is clear that there was a massive violation of security and intelligence; there is no denying it,” said Mahdi Mohammadi, senior counselor of Iranian parliament, General Mohammad Ghalibaf, in a recording analyzing the war. “Our senior commanders were all murdered in an hour.”
Iran’s “greatest failure was not to discover” the months of planning that Israeli agents led to bring missiles and drone pieces to the country to prepare for the attack, he added.
