From Survivor to Supreme Leader: The 1981 Ali Khamenei assassination attempt  

On Saturday, June 27, 1981, the Leader of the Friday Congregational Prayer, an Iranian named Ali Khamenei, rose to the platform at Abuzar Mosque in Tehran to speak to congregants who had gathered. Recently returned from the frontlines of the Iran-Iraq War raging in the west of the country.

After speaking, Khamenei sat to answer questions submitted by the young attendees gathered and a tape recorder was placed on the table in front of him. The device had been brought to the mosque by an individual posing as a journalist, described by Iran’s Mashregh News as “a young man of medium height, curly hair, beard and chequered coat.”

After a minute or so, the tape recorder began to make a whistling sound, before exploding in an attempt on Khamenei’s life. After the bombing, clerics at the mosque reported that the tape recorder had been split into two parts, and on the intersection, a message was found reading, "A gift from the Forqan Group to the Islamic Republic."

Khamenei was taken to Baharloo Hospital in southern Tehran to receive medical aid. The blast severely injured his right arm, which was left paralyzed, and his vocal cords were also damaged, affecting Khamenei’s speech for the rest of his life.

The Forqan Group was an Iranian militant opposition organization that operated through a network of secretive cells and adhered to a Shia Islamist ideology that was strongly anti-clerical. Their attempt on Khamenei’s life was a sign of the political unrest at the time in Iran.

In 1981, Iran was still recovering from the aftermaths of the Iranian Revolution in 1979 which swept the Islamists led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power - though success was far from guaranteed. The Islamic Republican Party (IRP), the vehicle through which Khomenei controlled the political organs of the newly-founded republic, was in a power struggle with the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MKO), an Iranian dissident Marxist organization. The MKO had been anti-Shah and supported the revolution but quickly turned against the Islamists who introduced a new constitution declaring Iran’s monarchy over and the country an Islamic Republic. Khomenei himself labeled them “munafeqin,” a Koranic term for hypocrites.

The MKO had briefly aligned itself with Iran’s President Abolhassan Banisadr, who was attempting to curb the power held by the Muslim clerics and the IRP, and re-assert presidential authority in the country. He was impeached and removed from power by the Majles (Iranian Parliament) just a matter of days before the attempt on Khamenei’s life.

Wave of terror attacks

On June 28, the day after the attempt on Khamenei’s life, a bomb ripped through the IRP headquarters, killing over 70 people, including 27 parliamentarians of the party and Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, the revolutionary judiciary head. The attack was attributed to the MKO, although the group never admitted responsibility.

Amid the backdrop of the ongoing Iran-Iraq War, the wave of terror attacks and assassinations by anti-Islamist radicals devastated the upper echelons of the IRP and Khomenei responded with violence to assert authority and fortify his position. This period of intense violence led to a harsh crackdown on political dissent, with the regime executing or imprisoning thousands of suspected opposition members to hold on to power.  

The attempted assassination of Khamenei was part of this broader conflict, marking a deadly chapter in the struggle between the regime and its opponents.

The ayatollah’s survival was seen as a miracle by his supporters and was used by the government to strengthen his image as a resilient and divinely protected leader. Despite his injuries, Khamenei continued to play a central role in the government.

In September of 1981, he was elected Iran’s new president, overwhelmingly winning the vote with 95% (16 million) of the votes. 

The attempted assassination of Khamenei was a significant event in the broader context of the Islamic Republic's early years. It underscored the deep divisions within Iranian society and the fierce resistance the new regime faced from various factions. For Khamenei, the attack was a transformative moment that contributed to his eventual rise to the position of Supreme Leader in 1989, following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. Today, the incident is remembered as a key moment in the consolidation of the Islamic Republic's power and the shaping of its leadership.