Iran's Hidden Supreme Leader Breaks Silence: Vows Hormuz Blockade and Vengeance for the Children of Minab

He has not been seen since his father was killed on the first day of the war. He was lightly injured in the same strikes, according to Reuters. His mother and wife were both killed. For twelve days, Mojtaba Khamenei - Iran's new Supreme Leader - had been a ghost, running the Islamic Republic from an undisclosed location as US and Israeli bombs reshaped his country.

On Thursday, March 12, that silence broke.

A presenter on Iranian state television read a statement attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei. He did not appear on screen. But the words were unmistakable in their defiance: Iran will not surrender the Strait of Hormuz. Iran will avenge every drop of blood. And any country that hosts American military bases should expect to be targeted.

The statement landed as three more civilian cargo ships were attacked in the Gulf. Oil prices hit nearly $100 a barrel - within striking range of the $120 peak seen earlier this week. Iran launched a fresh wave of missiles toward Israeli territory. The IDF issued an emergency evacuation order for seven neighborhoods in Beirut. And in Tehran, civilians told the BBC they have not slept properly in 12 days.

Day twelve of the Iran War is the most consequential yet.

The Statement: What Mojtaba Actually Said

The message was read aloud by a news presenter on state-controlled IRIB television, according to BBC Persian analysts monitoring the broadcast. It was the first official communication directly attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei since the Assembly of Experts named him Supreme Leader on March 8, four days into the war.

The core demands were blunt. The Strait of Hormuz, he said, remains a "lever" Iran must continue to use. The blockade stays. Every tanker that attempts passage does so at its own risk.

"Iran will not hesitate to avenge the blood of Iranians who have been killed. This is especially true in the case of Minab." - Mojtaba Khamenei, statement read on Iranian state television, March 12, 2026 (via BBC Persian translation)

The Minab reference is not rhetorical. It points to the single most inflammatory event of the war so far - a missile strike on February 28, the opening day of hostilities, that killed 168 people near a primary school in the southern city of Minab. Iranian officials put the number of children killed at approximately 110.

On neighboring countries hosting American forces, Khamenei was explicit: those nations should close US military bases, and Iran will continue targeting them. The statement framed this as "friendly advice" but the language left nothing ambiguous. Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait - all host significant US military infrastructure. All have already faced Iranian missile attacks this week.

Khamenei also included a line about "friendship" with regional neighbors - a phrase that analysts at BBC Persian described as simultaneously an olive branch and a threat, depending on which direction those neighbors choose to lean.

Minab: The Strike That Defined the War

The Minab school strike killed an estimated 110 children on the opening day of the war. [Unsplash / illustrative]

The Minab massacre has become the defining atrocity of the conflict's opening phase - and a propaganda weapon for the Iranian regime.

On February 28, a US Tomahawk missile struck an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base in the southern city of Minab. Approximately 200 meters from that base stood the Shajareh Tayebeh primary school. BBC Verify, working with independent analysis from Bellingcat and three separate weapons experts, confirmed this week that a Tomahawk - a weapon type exclusive to the US Navy - was the projectile visible in authentic footage from Mehr news agency moments before impact.

The IRGC base was legitimate military infrastructure. The school was not. Iranian state media reported 168 total deaths, including roughly 110 children. US President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran itself, claiming Iranian munitions "have no accuracy whatsoever." A preliminary assessment reported by CBS News, the BBC's US partner, concluded the US was "likely" responsible and may have struck the school by error.

Neither the US nor Israel has publicly accepted or denied responsibility. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the BBC's Tom Bateman last week that "the issue is being investigated." Democrats have since written formally to Hegseth asking whether US forces were responsible for the deaths of 110 children.

Wes Bryant, a national security analyst who served in the US Air Force, reviewed the footage and confirmed it showed a Tomahawk in its terminal phase. Bryant assessed that the pattern of multiple strikes across the IRGC compound "is indicative of a deliberate and precise US operation." The distinction between deliberate targeting of the military base and accidental killing of children in the adjacent school is exactly the kind of ambiguity that has made Minab so explosive.

For Mojtaba Khamenei, Minab is not just a political tool. It is personal. His father was killed on February 28. His mother and wife were also killed in strikes on that first day. Now he has publicly invoked the 110 children as a cause for vengeance, in his first statement to the Iranian people and the world.

Three More Ships Burning in the Gulf

The attacks Thursday represent the latest escalation in Iran's campaign to enforce its Strait of Hormuz blockade through unconventional naval warfare. The pattern is consistent: unmanned explosive speedboats, drones, and missiles targeting commercial shipping rather than warships - maximizing economic disruption while avoiding direct naval confrontation with the US Fifth Fleet.

UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), which monitors civilian shipping in the region, confirmed the attacks on two tankers off the Iraqi coast and a container ship near the UAE. The person killed on the US-owned tanker is the latest maritime casualty of the war, though the death toll from ship attacks remains far lower than land-based civilian casualties inside Iran.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said last week that oil tankers passing through the strait "must be very careful." That warning has proven accurate. According to Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at Global Risk Management, the strait is "de facto closed in that no one dares to go through." Ships can try to pass but face the prospect of missile attack and insurance that either does not exist or has become prohibitively expensive.

About 3,000 ships usually navigate the strait per month. Since the war began on February 28, that number has collapsed. About 20% of the world's daily oil supply - roughly 20 million barrels - normally transits through this 33-kilometer-wide chokepoint. The disruption is now entering its twelfth consecutive day with no sign of resolution.

Iran Fires on Israel - And Beirut Gets Another Warning

As Khamenei's statement was being read on state television, Iran's military launched a fresh wave of missiles toward Israeli territory. The IDF confirmed detecting missiles launched from Iran and said its defense systems were operating to intercept them. No further details on the specific targets or impact were immediately available.

The Israeli-Lebanese front also escalated Thursday. The IDF issued what it called an "urgent warning" to residents of seven specific neighborhoods in southern Beirut's suburbs - Haret Hreik, Ghobeiri, Laylaki, Hadath, Burj al-Barajneh, Tahwitat al-Ghadir, and Chiyah - ordering immediate evacuation. IDF Arabic spokesperson Avichai Adraee said Hezbollah's "terrorist activities" were compelling IDF action and that residents should not return "until further notice."

The Beirut warnings follow a pattern of the Israel-Hezbollah front reopening as a secondary theater of this war. Iran has continued firing missiles at Israel directly while Hezbollah operates from Lebanese territory, stretching Israeli air defense capacity across multiple incoming threat vectors simultaneously.

Iran's missile campaign has also struck neighboring Gulf states. Bahrain, Oman, Dubai, and Qatar have all reported Iranian missile strikes this week - each a country that hosts US military infrastructure and that Khamenei's statement Thursday explicitly identified as a target.

Inside Iran: 3.2 Million Displaced, Sleep Impossible

Up to 3.2 million Iranians are now temporarily displaced inside their own country, according to UNHCR preliminary assessments. [Unsplash / illustrative]

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reports that between 600,000 and one million Iranian households are now temporarily displaced inside Iran as a result of the ongoing conflict - representing up to 3.2 million people in total. The agency said that figure is likely to continue rising as hostilities persist.

An almost complete internet blackout inside Iran since February 28 has made independent verification of events inside the country extremely difficult. Journalists face severe restrictions. But through brief internet connections and messaging apps, some Iranians have managed to reach international reporters.

A woman in her 20s in Tehran told BBC Persian she has been on her period for ten days straight - a physical manifestation of extreme stress. "I wanted to go out today but heard the explosions and stayed at home in my bed," she said. "My sleep gets disrupted by explosions."

A man in his 30s said he no longer has a routine: "I can't go cycling or running outside. Yesterday I finished a one kilometre run inside my flat, just swinging from the bedroom to the hall and the kitchen."

Another Tehran resident described persistent gastrointestinal symptoms. "My stomach has been messed up. I have diarrhoea and vomiting. Every time they hit, I get a headache, which happens quite frequently."

Those Iranians who had initially welcomed the prospect of US and Israeli strikes - hoping military pressure might accelerate regime collapse - are also reporting a painful reassessment. Sama, a 31-year-old engineer in Tehran who told BBC she screamed in happiness when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was confirmed dead, described a dramatic shift in mood two weeks on.

"Now I see some are terrified and people I know are wondering if their neighbourhood will be targeted next. I can't sleep anymore. I wake up either to the sound of explosions, or because of nightmares about them." - Sama, engineer, Tehran (name changed for safety, via BBC)

Mina, a 28-year-old teacher, captured the central anxiety shared by many opposition-minded Iranians: "What if we are left with ruins and the same mullahs and the same government? Only more oppressive and more defiant?" A 31-year-old shopkeeper who was injured during protests expressed the same fear: "I want freedom. But I also want a country left standing when this ends."

The Strait Numbers: What $600 Billion a Year Actually Means

The economic stakes of Mojtaba Khamenei's vow to keep the Strait of Hormuz blocked are staggering and are already being felt across three continents.

In 2025, approximately 20 million barrels of oil per day transited the Strait of Hormuz, according to US Energy Information Administration estimates. That represents roughly 20% of global daily oil consumption. Translated into dollar terms: approximately $600 billion in energy trade per year - roughly the GDP of Sweden - passes through a channel 33 kilometers wide at its narrowest point.

That oil does not belong to Iran. It comes from Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. All of those countries - despite being US allies - are now suffering economically from a blockade they did not choose. Saudi Arabia's export revenues have collapsed. Iraq's oil ministry is scrambling for alternative routes. Qatar's LNG tankers face the same gauntlet as crude carriers.

The cost of hiring a supertanker to ship oil from the Middle East to China has doubled in days to a record high exceeding $400,000 per voyage, according to data from the London Stock Exchange Group. That cost gets passed upstream to refiners, then to consumers at the pump.

Meanwhile, satellite imagery from US firm Vantor, analyzed by BBC, shows bunker-buster damage at the Taleghan 2 site at Parchin - a facility previously linked to Iran's nuclear program by the IAEA. US and Israeli forces appear to be targeting Iran's nuclear infrastructure as well as its conventional military assets, raising the stakes of any future diplomatic resolution considerably.

India's Kitchen Crisis - How War Reaches the Stove

The clearest illustration of how the Hormuz blockade translates into real-world civilian pain is playing out 3,000 kilometers from the fighting - in India's restaurants, bakeries, and kitchens.

India imports roughly 60% of its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and approximately 90% of those shipments pass through the Strait of Hormuz. With the strait effectively closed since February 28, LPG supplies across India have tightened sharply. Social media is circulating videos of long queues outside cooking-gas dealers from Delhi to Chennai to Bengaluru.

"The situation is dire. Cooking gas simply isn't available," Manpreet Singh of the National Restaurant Association of India - representing approximately 500,000 restaurants - told the BBC. Up to a fifth of hotels and restaurants in Mumbai have already partially or fully shut. Restaurant operators are switching to coal, wood, and electric cookers to stay operational.

India has more than 300 million domestic LPG users. The government insists there is no shortage, attributing the squeeze to panic buying and directing refineries to maximize domestic LPG production - a 25% increase in output ordered on March 8. But the math is brutal: 90% of LPG imports through a closed chokepoint is not a problem that domestic production can quickly offset.

For crude oil specifically, India has a partial escape valve - it can ramp up discounted Russian crude imports that travel different routes. Kpler, the maritime intelligence firm, estimates incremental Russian crude imports in March could partially offset Gulf supply losses. But LPG supply chains are less flexible, and the squeeze is already at the dinner table.

The India situation is a microcosm of what the broader global economy faces if the Strait of Hormuz blockade continues into weeks rather than days. The war's first week cost the US military $11.3 billion, according to figures presented to Congress by US military officials. The global economic cost from the shipping disruption alone is running at a pace that threatens to dwarf that figure.

Timeline: Twelve Days That Changed the Gulf

What Comes Next: Signals in the Silence

Mojtaba Khamenei's first statement carries a specific strategic logic. He has been invisible for twelve days - not from weakness, but from necessity. A Supreme Leader who speaks too early, before his position is consolidated, risks projecting desperation. A leader who speaks too late risks appearing to have lost control.

The Thursday statement hits a particular beat: a message that the regime is intact, defiant, and has a unified policy position - hold the strait, hold the war, avenge the dead. It targets multiple audiences simultaneously. For the Iranian public, it signals continuity and resolve. For the Gulf neighbors, it delivers a credible threat. For the US and Israel, it confirms that the Islamic Republic is not on the verge of collapse and is not seeking a negotiated exit.

The reference to Minab is also calculated. Whatever actually happened at Minab on February 28 - accidental US strike, deliberate US strike, deliberate Israeli strike, or some combination - the image of 110 dead children is devastating propaganda. It is the single event most likely to generate international sympathy for Iran, erode US domestic support for the war, and complicate the Biden-era alliance architecture that Trump inherited and then deployed.

Senior US military officials' confirmation to Congress that the first week cost $11.3 billion - with no end state defined and no ceasefire talks publicly on the table - suggests the financial pressure will begin to build in Washington. The US Supreme Court striking down part of Trump's tariffs policy this week, combined with simultaneous trade probes launched against China and India, means the administration is already fighting on multiple economic fronts.

For Iran, the calculation is grimly simple: survive long enough for the international consensus to fracture. Every day that the Strait of Hormuz stays closed is another day that Saudi Arabia, India, China, South Korea, and Japan absorb economic pain from a war they had no part in starting. Every ship that burns is another dispatch that arrives in cabinet rooms in Seoul, New Delhi, and Beijing asking whether the US can be trusted to protect global energy infrastructure.

Mojtaba Khamenei may be invisible. But his strategy is very much in view.