US places $10 million high-stakes bounty on Supreme Leader and other Iranian leaders

International, Middle East, North America, Politics

INTERNATIONAL — (NPA) MARCH 14 — The U.S. State Department has offered $10 million and a pathway to resettlement in America for Iranians who can reveal the whereabouts of ten senior figures in the Islamic Republic’s power structure. The move is part of Washington’s campaign against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — and Ali Larijani, national security adviser and veteran politician, are the most recognisable names. Not all ten are identified; four positions, including the secretary of the defence council, are listed only by title, reflecting rapid turnover after recent airstrikes and the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in late February.

The bounty notably excludes some of Iran’s top leadership. President Masoud Pezeshkian, Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, and Ayatollah Alireza Arafi — who assumed collective leadership after Khamenei’s death — are absent. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who joined Friday’s pro-Palestinian march in Tehran alongside Larijani and Pezeshkian, also escaped inclusion.

The timing coincided with Quds Day demonstrations, where leaders reaffirmed support for the Palestinian cause. Yet beneath the political theatre lies a deeper vulnerability: Iran’s economy has been battered for years by sanctions, mismanagement, and corruption. Inflation and soaring costs have left citizens struggling. Against this backdrop, Washington’s promise of reward and relocation may resonate more strongly, offering not just money but escape from a system many feel has failed them.

This bounty program continues America’s strategy of targeting the IRGC’s upper ranks — not through battlefield confrontation alone, but by incentivising insider betrayal. Whether Iranians will respond remains uncertain, but the U.S. is betting that economic desperation, coupled with the lure of a new life abroad, could succeed where military strikes and sanctions have struggled.