The United States Department of State on Friday placed a $10 million bounty on Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and nine other senior Iranian officials, escalating its pressure campaign on Tehran as the two-week-old war between the United States, Israel and Iran enters a new phase.
The reward targets 10 officials associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the military force created after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution that is loyal to the supreme leader and tasked with protecting the country’s clerical establishment.
Among those listed are Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni, Intelligence and Security Minister Esmail Khatib, Ali Asghar Hejazi, deputy chief of staff in the Supreme Leader’s office, senior military adviser Yahya Rahim Safavi, and top national security official Ali Larijani.
“These individuals command and direct various elements of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which plans, organises and executes terrorism around the world,” the State Department said in its announcement.
The department urged anyone with relevant information to submit tips through encrypted channels including the Signal communications platform and a secure portal on the Tor network. Informants were told they may qualify for both a financial reward and relocation to the United States.
Mojtaba Khamenei succeeded his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed alongside dozens of senior Iranian political and military figures in joint US-Israeli airstrikes on February 28. The younger Khamenei has not made a public appearance since the war began and released only his first statement through Iranian state media on Thursday.
United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday that Mojtaba Khamenei was wounded and likely disfigured following the strikes that targeted Iranian leadership. He added that US-Israeli operations had struck more than 15,000 Iranian targets since the conflict began. Those injury claims have not been independently verified.
The Rewards for Justice programme has previously offered bounties for senior figures including former al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The wider conflict has claimed approximately 1,300 lives since February 28, with tensions spreading across the region including Iranian drone and missile strikes targeting Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Gulf states hosting US military assets, resulting in casualties, damage to civilian infrastructure, and significant disruption to global energy markets and aviation.
