US offers up to USD 10 million for info on Iranian officials, including Khamenei

The United States has announced rewards of up to $10 million for information on several senior Iranian military and intelligence officials, including Iran’s newly installed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.

According to details published on the US state department’s rewards website, the offer applies to 10 individuals linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the powerful military organisation tasked with safeguarding the country’s clerical establishment.

The IRGC was formed in the aftermath of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and operates as a force directly loyal to the supreme leader.

Mojtaba Khamenei recently assumed the position after his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed alongside several senior Iranian officials in joint US and Israeli strikes that began on 28 February.

The younger Khamenei, who US officials claim was wounded in those attacks, has not appeared in public since. However, he issued his first statement since taking office on Thursday, 12 March.

In addition to the supreme leader, the US reward notice seeks information about several senior figures in Iran’s security establishment, including security chief Ali Larijani, intelligence minister Esmail Khatib and interior minister Eskandar Momeni, as well as two officials working in Khamenei’s office.

Despite US claims that Iran’s leadership had gone into hiding, Larijani appeared in video footage verified by Reuters on Friday, 13 March, attending a rally in Tehran alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian and foreign minister Abbas Araqchi.

Earlier, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth had asserted that Iranian leaders were “cowering” underground amid the ongoing conflict.

The State Department listing also references four additional figures connected to the IRGC, including the corps’ commander and the secretary of Iran’s defence council, although their names and photographs were not provided.

“These individuals command and direct various elements of the IRGC, which plans, organizes, and executes terrorism around the world,” the State Department said in its description of the programme.

Reuters reported that the Revolutionary Guards could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday, which is the weekly day of rest in Iran. Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Washington has designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organisation and accuses it of orchestrating attacks that have resulted in the deaths of US citizens.

The US government has also alleged that Iran was behind assassination plots targeting President Donald Trump and other American officials, which Washington says were attempts to avenge the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020.

Tehran has consistently denied supporting terrorism. Iranian officials regularly dismiss such accusations as politically motivated, arguing that the United States uses terrorism allegations to justify sanctions and broader pressure campaigns against the country.

With agency inputs