Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has gone underground, reportedly hiding out in a bunker out of fear of being wiped out by US airstrikes — as the USS Abraham Lincoln steams toward the Persian Gulf.
The 86-year-old supreme leader has moved to a fortified shelter in Tehran connected to a series of elaborate underground tunnels after senior military officials warned of the increasing likelihood of an imminent US attack, Iran International reported, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Khamenei has left his youngest son Masoud Khamenei, 53, in charge of running the day-to-day management of the Islamic Republic, the Jerusalem Post further reported.
Masoud Khamenei’s emergency duties include being the primary communication channel with the regime’s executive branch, according to the report.
Iran has deemed the likelihood of US airstrikes to be high after President Trump announced that warships were headed to the Middle East as a warning to the Ayatollah, following a continuing war of words between the two leaders in recent days.
Trump boasted Friday that the US Navy was sending a massive “armada.”
The Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, which includes three destroyers, is currently motoring from the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf region of Iran, Stars and Stripes reported.
Publicly, Tehran has not backed down from heightened tensions with the US as Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian threatened to treat any attack against the supreme leader by the US or Israel as “an all-out war against us.”
Iran’s National Security Parliamentary Commission also declared this week that any attack against the embattled Khamenei would trigger a declaration of jihad, the Iranian Students News Agency reported, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Khamenei, who is frequently active on social media, has not posted on X since 17 January, though it is not known when he allegedly entered into hiding.
It’s not the first time the supreme leader has holed up underground. Khamenei also went silent after retreating to a bunker last June, during the 12-Day War with Israel.
He reportedly had even drafted a list of potential successors in the event he was killed in the short-lived conflict.
*PHOTO CAPTION: Ayatollah Khamenei.
*This story was culled from the New York Post of Saturday, 24 January,2026.
