The United States has placed a $10 million (over ₹83 crore) bounty on Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and a clutch of senior Iranian officials tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in one of Washington DC’s most aggressive intelligence gambits against Tehran, since war began, multiple reports including Fox News, Wion, Dallas Express said. The bulletin published by US identified six people including Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, and top national security official Ali Larijani.
The State Department has formally listed Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran’s newly installed paramount leader, under its “Rewards for Justice programme”, alongside several high-ranking figures embedded within Iran’s security and intelligence apparatus.
Officials framed the reward as part of a broader campaign to disrupt the IRGC’s operational networks, which Washington accuses of masterminding attacks on American personnel and providing material support to designated terrorist organisations across the Middle East and beyond.
Beyond Mojtaba Khamenei himself, the “Rewards for Justice programme” names Ali Asghar Hejazi, deputy chief of staff for the Supreme Leader’s Office, and Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council – two figures who sit at the very heart of Iran’s post-Khamenei governance architecture.The list extends further into Iran’s security establishment.