Iran Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei living in undisclosed location, tough to reach as peace process continues: Report

Washington DC: Iran's Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is living in secrecy at an undisclosed location with limited access to the outside world, CBS News reported on Sunday, citing US intelligence.

According to the report, the Iranian Supreme Leader is only reached by a labyrinth of couriers, as per US officials with knowledge of the matter, and the Iranian officials authorised to work with the Trump administration are having a tough time communicating inside of their own government system, which is a key reason why the negotiations have been slow to emerge.

CBS said that when the US sends proposed details, the difficulty in reaching the supreme leader results in a long delay before the US receives a response, two of the officials said.


The report mentioned that while the most cautious measures are being taken by the supreme leader, even officials at the highest levels of the Iranian government are not aware of his whereabouts and have no way to contact him directly.

Instead, messages are passed through a network of couriers created to obscure the supreme leader's location.

The official said every piece of information received is dated, and there is a lot of latency in the responses by the Supreme Leader.

One of the officials also said that the American and Israeli intelligence obtained from inside the Iranian government made it possible to locate and eliminate much of the Iranian senior leadership during the war.

Iran's Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was injured in the American and Israeli strikes during Operation Epic Fury, and has since then been taking extreme measures to avoid strikes similar to the ones that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

While he has not been seen in live in public since before the start of the war, messages attributed to him are routinely reported by Iranian media.