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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spends all day sleeping and using drugs while most of the country lacks access to clean water and electricity, according to a social media account linked to Israel’s national intelligence agency.
“How can a leader lead when they sleep half the day and spend the other half high on substances?” the Mossad’s Farsi account wrote Friday on X. “Water, electricity, life!”
“Consuming drugs and conversing with spirits are not desirable traits for someone leading a country,” the account wrote on July 9.
The post came from a new X account with a premium subscription created last month, claiming to be the official Mossad spokesperson in Farsi — the official language of Iran — though the Israeli intelligence agency has not officially confirmed the account’s affiliation.
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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spends all day sleeping and using drugs, a Mossad-linked social media account purported. (Getty Images)
The account has made several posts over the last month about Khamenei’s health and the state of Iran, including its lack of clean water, electricity and education.
“To everyone contacting us through private messages, for your own security, please ensure you are using a VPN,” the account’s bio reads.
A post on the account addressed the designation of the newly appointed, but officially unnamed, commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, which is the command headquarters of the Iranian Armed Forces.
After the Tasnim News Agency, Iran’s semi-official news agency associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that Iran would not reveal the commander’s identity for his protection, the Mossad-linked account said it already knew the name and urged Iranians to send in their guesses.
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The Mossad-linked account has made several posts over the last month about Khamenei’s health and the state of Iran. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
The account responded to the “lucky winner” who guessed the name Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi and told him to “contact us privately to receive your prize.”
The satirical jabs and provocative claims coming from the account are unlike the way the Mossad usually communicates with the public, but two intelligence experts told JFeed, an Israeli news outlet, that the unusual Mossad-linked account appears to be authentic.
“Some of the information it has shared could only have come from Mossad,” Beny Sabti, an Iran expert at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies and a former IDF Persian-language officer, told the outlet.
Khamenei’s alleged drug use has been suggested in the past, with an Iranian academic saying in 2022 that the Iranian Supreme Leader often uses drugs.
The Israeli intelligence agency has not officially confirmed the account’s affiliation. (AP)
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“Many viewers do not know this, but Khamenei himself uses drugs,” Nour Mohamed Omara said on Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated TV in Turkey at the time.
“He has a special village in Balochistan, where the drugs used by the leader are produced,” the academic added. “This village is run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and no one is allowed in.”
The Ayatollah publicly declared drug use as “un-Islamic” after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Penalties for drug-related offenses can include death.