With anti-regime unrest spreading across Iran, the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is secretly planning his escape if the regime falls, The Times of London revealed Monday, quoting an intelligence source.
Khamenei has good reasons to work out a backup plan. His regime suffered a serious military and morale setback in the Twelve-Day War with Israel last summer. Khamenei’s own position within the regime has been weakened by the loss of many of his long-time confidants and key military commanders since Iran-backed Hamas launched the terrorist invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023.
Russia appears to be an obvious destination for a failed Iranian dictator. Nearly one year ago, the Iran-backed dictator of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, fled to Moscow after his regime collapsed after 50 years of clan rule. Khamenei, who leads the chants of “Death to America” at weekly Friday prayers in Tehran, has been at the helm of the tyrannical Islamic regime since 1989.
The revelations come a day after U.S. special forces captured Venezuela’s Maduro from a heavily fortified military base outside the capital, Caracas. The flawlessly executed military operation undoubtedly sparked fear in the hearts of tyrants like Khamenei.
The Times of London reported Khamenei’s secret escape plan:
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has a back-up plan to flee the Country should his security forces fail to suppress protests or desert, according to an intelligence report shared with The Times.Khamenei, 86, plans to escape Tehran with a close circle of up to 20 aides and family, should he see that the army and security called on to quell the unrest are deserting, defecting or failing to follow orders.“The ‘plan B’ is for Khamenei and his very close circle of associates and family, including his son and nominated heir apparent, Mojtaba,” an intelligence source told The Times.Beni Sabti, who served for decades in Israeli intelligence after fleeing the regime eight years after the Islamic revolution, told The Times that Khamenei would flee to Moscow as “there is no other place for him”. (…)The getaway plan is based on the escape of his ally, the fallen Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad who fled Damascus aboard a plane to Moscow to join his family before opposition forces stormed the capital in December 2024 .“They have plotted an exit route out of Tehran should they feel the need to escape,” which includes “gathering assets, properties abroad and cash to facilitate their safe passage”, the source said.Khamenei is known to hold a major network of assets, some under one of the most powerful organisations in Iran, Setad — part of a system of semi-state charitable foundations known for their financial obfuscation. Estimates put the total holdings at $95 billion, according to a Reuters investigation in 2013, including properties and companies, all held and controlled by Khamenei.Many of his closest aides, including the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, Ali Larijani — who warned President Trump to stay out of Tehran’s affairs — have family members already living abroad, including in the US, Canada and Dubai. Nationwide protests triggered by economic hardships have gripped cities across Iran, including in the holy city of Qom, over the last week.The forces are under the total command of Khameini, who is the supreme source of power in the Islamic republic, overruling the army, courts and media. He relies on the IRGC to enforce his bidding as a central source of power. The escape plan will be activated should Khamenei feel his security forces are not following orders. Desertion and defection are not easily undertaken, with Khamenei protecting loyalists, controlling key appointments and their safety, according to a psychological profile of the leader done by a western intelligence agency and seen by The Times.But the same assessment said Khamenei was “weaker, both mentally and physically” since last year’s 12-day war with Israel. He has barely been seen in public and, notably, has not been seen or heard from during the last several days of protests. For the duration of war, Khamenei holed up in a bunker, avoiding the fate of several other high-level IRGC officials and feeding his “obsession with survival”.The assessment calls him a “paranoid” leader, a trait that shaped his plan to leave Iran should his forces desert him. “On one hand, he is very ideologically motivated, but on the other he is pragmatic in what he sees: he sees tactical compromise for long-term greater cause. He is a long-term thinker,” the assessment read. (….)
The France24 TV channel on Monday reported “[n]ew deadly clashes between protesters and security forces,” raising the number of people killed by the Iranian regime forces to 12.
A militarily weakened regime now faced economic collapse as President Trump’s policy of Maximum Pressure began to show its effect, the Associated Press noted on Monday:
Widening protests in Iran sparked by the Islamic Republic’s ailing economy are putting new pressure on its theocracy.Tehran is still reeling from a 12-day war launched by Israel in June that saw the United States bomb nuclear sites in Iran. Economic pressure, which has intensified since September when the United Nations reimposed sanctions on the country over its atomic program, has put Iran’s rial currency into a free fall, now trading at some 1.4 million to $1.Meanwhile, Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” — a coalition of countries and militant groups backed by Tehran — has been decimated in the years since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023.
Not just demonstrators on the street, the U.S. has also amped up the pressure on Khamenei. A day after Venezuelan leader and wanted narco-terrorist, Maduro, was captured by a Delta Force team, President Donald Trump warned that the U.S. will hit the Khamenei regime “very hard” if it continues quelling protests with deadly force.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters on Sunday.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY