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Major Story (7/10)
August 9, 2026 at 05:13 AM
Iran Releases 'First' Video of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. It's Old Footage From March.
Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency published a 12-second video Saturday, August 8, that it billed as the first footage of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei since the war with the United States and Israel began. The clip shows him seated among a group of men, apparently addressing students, with the right side of his face obscured. Mehr gave no date or location.
Within hours, the video's credibility fell apart. Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, posted that the footage was old material that had already circulated in March, months before the timeframe Mehr implied. Social media users inside Iran reportedly identified it as archival video from one of Khamenei's past lectures in Qom, according to ZeroHedge. Chinese state broadcaster CGTN and Russian outlets picked up and amplified the Mehr release without flagging the discrepancy.
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, became Iran's Supreme Leader after his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a joint US-Israeli strike on February 28 that also killed senior military officials, according to Hindustan Times and Views Bangladesh. Iran's Assembly of Experts selected him as successor in early March. He has not appeared in public since, including at his father's funeral last month, an absence made more conspicuous because his three brothers did attend, according to Deccan Chronicle.
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