Hegseth: New Iranian leader ‘likely disfigured’ in attack that killed his father

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday that Mojtaba Khamenei, the newly appointed supreme leader of Iran, was wounded and “likely disfigured” in an airstrike on his father’s home during the first day of missile strikes on Iran.

The defense secretary dismissed a statement released Thursday that purported to be from Mr. Khamenei, the son of former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the initial U.S.-Israeli airstrike on Feb. 28.

“It was a weak one, actually. There was no voice, and there was no video,” Mr. Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon. “It was a written statement. Why a written statement? He’s scared, he’s injured, he’s on the run, and he lacks legitimacy.”

With the new supreme leader laying low, either by choice or by circumstance, Mr. Hegseth said Iran’s people may not know who is in charge.

“It’s a mess for them. We know, and they know that the military capabilities of their evil regime are crumbling,” he said. “They’re confused, and we know it. They can barely communicate, let alone coordinate.”

Mr. Hegseth said Iran’s ballistic missile production capacity has been “functionally defeated” since the start of Operation Epic Fury, the American campaign against the Islamic Republic. U.S. forces are rapidly destroying whatever firepower they have in stock, officials said.

“But more importantly, we are ensuring they have no ability to make more,” Mr. Hegseth said.

Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said more than 6,000 targets inside Iran have been attacked since the start of Epic Fury. Standing on the podium next to Mr. Hegseth, the general said U.S. forces have launched an “unprecedented number of sorties” over Iran.

“CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] is now persistently over the enemy, and as a result, we’ve seen a reduction in missile and one-way attack fires,” Gen. Caine said.

While the U.S-Israeli air campaign has made Iran’s navy combat ineffective, American forces continue to attack their remaining naval vessels, including Shahid Soleimani-class corvettes, the principal surface combatant ships of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy. They are armed with anti-ship missiles and anti-aircraft weapons.

“We’ve made progress, but Iran still can harm friendly forces and commercial shipping,” Gen. Caine said. “Our work on this effort continues.”

The Strait of Hormuz is the single most important “chokepoint” in the conflict because it is the world’s primary artery for energy. Located between Iran and Oman, it is the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.

“The only thing preventing commercial traffic from flowing through the Strait right now — there is some flowing through the Strait — is Iran. They are the belligerents here holding the Strait closed,” Gen. Caine. “We’ve made it a priority to target Iran’s minelaying enterprise: their minelayers, the naval bases, and the depots. CENTCOM continues to attack those efforts.”

A general officer from outside the Central Command chain of command has been tasked with a command investigation into the missile strike at the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school for girls in Minab, near the Strait of Hormuz. At least 175 people, mostly children, were reportedly killed in the air strike.

According to multiple media reports, the school was destroyed by a U.S. Tomahawk missile that received faulty targeting data.

“There’s only one entity in this conflict between the U.S. and Iran that never targets civilians,” Mr. Hegseth said. “We don’t target [civilians,] Iran does. We will investigate. We’ll get to the truth, and we’ll share it.”