Mojtaba Khamenei using ‘bin Laden template’ to survive, learned from Abbottabad: analyst

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has spent astir 3 months successful hiding arsenic tensions pinch nan U.S. escalate — a disappearance that counterterrorism analysts opportunity mirrors nan last years of al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.

The comparison comes amid a captious standoff betwixt Washington and Tehran that prompted President Donald Trump to region a planned onslaught connected May 19. On Wednesday, Trump told reporters he was successful "no hurry."

Khamenei, meanwhile, appeared to stock 3 posts connected his charismatic X relationship connected May 18 but remains retired of nationalist view.

"For nan first clip successful nan history of nan Islamic Republic, nan United States has done to Tehran what it spent 2 decades doing to al-Qaeda and ISIS," counterterrorism master Dr. Omar Mohammed told Fox News Digital.

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is shown successful a image image. (Fox News)

"The U.S. has driven its leader into nan aforesaid benignant of operational invisibility that bin Laden lived successful for 10 years successful Abbottabad," he added.

"Both Mojtaba Khamenei and bin Laden inherited their position connected nan backmost of an American operation, and some responded nan aforesaid way: by ceasing to beryllium publicly," Mohammed said earlier adding that bin Laden "stopped releasing dated videos astir 2007 and confined himself to audio messages carried by hand."

Bin Laden founded al-Qaeda successful nan precocious 1980s and masterminded nan Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against nan United States.

After nan U.S. penetration of Afghanistan, bin Laden evaded seizure for a decade by hiding wrong a fortified compound successful Abbottabad, Pakistan.

To debar Western physics surveillance, he severed his integer footprint and relied exclusively connected a web of beingness couriers, said Mohammed, an master pinch nan Antisemitism Research Initiative astatine George Washington University’s Program connected Extremism.

U.S. intelligence yet tracked 1 of those couriers to nan compound, culminating successful nan 2011 Navy SEAL ambush that killed nan al Qaeda leader.

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Portrait of erstwhile al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was killed successful 2011 successful a daring SEAL Team 6 ambush successful Pakistan. (Photo by Stephane Ruet/Sygma via Getty Images)

"Bin Laden survived pinch nary cables retired of nan Abbottabad compound. Communications were carried by manus by 2 trusted couriers, nan Kuwaiti brothers," Mohammed said.

"Bin Laden stayed hidden for nan remainder of his life because nan infinitesimal he surfaced was nan infinitesimal he died. Mojtaba’s incentives constituent nan aforesaid way. Mojtaba Khamenei won’t emerge," he said.

"The Abbottabad lesson, which Tehran will person studied closely, is that nan safest hiding spot is not a cave successful Tora Bora but a walled compound successful a garrison town," Mohammed added, recalling really U.S. forces targeted bin Laden successful nan cave analyzable earlier he escaped.

Bin Laden besides lived astir a mile from Pakistan’s apical subject academy, hiding successful plain show down precocious actual walls and barbed wire, Mohammed noted.

"The logical Iranian equivalents are hardened sites nether aliases alongside IRGC facilities," Mohammed added, referring to nan Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and imaginable locations wherever Khamenei could be.

As antecedently reported by Fox News Digital, 1 of Khamenei’s fewer caller communications was an X station declaring a "holy war," framing nan geopolitical conflict arsenic a mandatory belief obligation.

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President Donald Trump said, "I sewage him earlier he sewage me" aft Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and respective apical leaders were killed successful an Israeli onslaught successful Tehran during nan U.S.-Israeli subject violative called Operation Epic Fury. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images; Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

"This is simply a religious leader calling for ineffable warfare against America and nan Jews from an undisclosed location because his enemies person publically vowed to termination him connected sight," Mohammed said, describing nan communicative arsenic "the bin Laden template, almost statement for line."

Mohammed besides suggested Khamenei’s retreat into nan shadows marks a watershed infinitesimal for Washington and nan future of nan Iranian regime.

His predecessor and father, Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed Feb. 28 successful a targeted U.S.-Israeli airstrike successful Tehran during Operation Epic Fury.

"This authorities that for 47 years projected its powerfulness done a azygous visible Supreme Leader astatine nan Friday dream pulpit can nary longer nutrient that fig connected demand," he said, calling it a "strategic milestone."

"Predecessors killed by U.S. strikes and successors who cannot show their faces. Real powerfulness exercised by a information servants of nan state alternatively than by nan nominal figurehead."

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"Now 1 broadside is announcing operations connected 3 continents done its president; nan different is governed connected insubstantial by a man whose ain organization is uncertain wherever he is aliases what authorities he is in," Mohammed said.

"The opposition is besides astir nan optics of activity during this war," he added.