JERUSALEM, March 11 (Reuters) - Israel's intelligence assessment is that Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was lightly wounded in the Israeli-U.S. joint air war against Iran and that is why he has not been seen in public, a senior Israeli official told Reuters.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards forced through the choice of Mojtaba Khamenei as the new supreme leader, seeing him as a more pliant version of his father who would back their hardline policies.

Khamenei's selection may add up to a more aggressive stance abroad and sterner internal repression, said three senior Iranian sources, a reformist former official and another insider.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said last week that any leader appointed by the current Iranian leadership would "be an unequivocal target for elimination."

(Reporting by Jerusalem bureau; editing by Rami Ayyub, Andrew Heavens and Sharon Singleton)