As American naval power moves closer to Iran’s doorstep, new reports claim the country’s top leader has retreated from public view and taken shelter beneath the capital.
According to the New York Post, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, has allegedly gone underground, relocating to a fortified bunker in Tehran amid fears of potential US airstrikes.
Iran International, which was cited by the Jerusalem Post, said senior military officials warned Khamenei that the chances of a direct American strike had sharply increased.
The report said Khamenei is now operating from a heavily protected underground facility linked to an extensive tunnel network designed to withstand military attacks.
With the supreme leader in hiding, responsibility for managing day-to-day government affairs has reportedly been handed to his youngest son, Masoud Khamenei, 53. The Jerusalem Post reported that Masoud has assumed emergency administrative duties, including serving as the primary conduit between the supreme leader’s office and Iran’s executive branch.
The alleged move comes after President Donald Trump announced Friday that US warships were heading toward the Middle East, escalating an already tense standoff between Washington and Tehran. Trump’s remarks followed days of sharp rhetoric between the two leaders.
Central to the heightened concern is the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, which includes three destroyers and is currently traveling from the Indian Ocean toward the Persian Gulf region near Iran, according to Stars and Stripes.
Despite the reports of Khamenei seeking shelter, Iranian officials have struck a defiant public tone. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian warned that any attack targeting the supreme leader by the US or Israel would be treated as “an all-out war against us.”
Iran’s national security parliamentary commission echoed that message, declaring this week that any strike on Khamenei would trigger a formal declaration of jihad, according to the Iranian Students News Agency.
Khamenei’s absence has not gone unnoticed. The supreme leader, who is typically active on social media, has not posted on X since Jan. 17. It remains unclear exactly when he is believed to have entered the bunker.
This is not the first time Khamenei has reportedly disappeared underground.
During last June’s 12-Day War with Israel, he similarly went silent after retreating to a bunker. At that time, reports indicated he had even prepared a list of potential successors in the event he was killed.
Khamenei’s most recent post this year included a threat aimed at both domestic and foreign “criminals,” whom he blamed for nationwide unrest.
Those protests, sparked by a collapsing economy and the worst drought Iran has experienced in decades, have turned deadly. Regime forces have reportedly killed at least 3,000 civilians, with some groups estimating the death toll could be as high as 20,000.
