Ali Larijani, the most prominent Iranian official to have survived the opening days of the war, has been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a hideout apartment in Tehran, marking the most significant targeted elimination since the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on 28 February.
Larijani, 67, who served as secretary of Iran’s National Security Council and was widely regarded as Khamenei’s closest political lieutenant, was struck alongside his son at the safe house. The Israel Defense Forces also confirmed the simultaneous killing of Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij paramilitary force, in the same operation.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office released a photograph of Benjamin Netanyahu taking a phone call beside a senior military commander, captioned: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders the elimination of senior figures in the Iranian regime.” Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said Larijani and the Basij commander had “joined the head of the annihilation program, Khamenei, and all the eliminated members of the axis of evil, in the depths of hell.”
The timing of Larijani’s death carries particular significance. Just days before the strike, he had appeared publicly at Tehran’s annual Quds Day march — one of the most high-profile appearances by any Iranian official since the war began — where he dismissed Israeli and US strikes on the capital as acts of desperation. “One who is strong wouldn’t bomb demonstrations at all,” he told state television, adding that Trump “doesn’t understand that the Iranian people are a brave nation.” He had also warned the US President to “take care not to be eliminated” and predicted Trump would be “sorry” for what he called a “grave miscalculation.”
Iranian authorities had, as recently as Monday, stated that Larijani was due to deliver a public address on Tuesday. Following Israel’s confirmation of his death, a handwritten note attributed to him was posted on his social media channels by Iranian state media, in which he paid tribute to Iranian sailors killed in a US attack whose funeral was scheduled for Tuesday.
Larijani was one of the Islamic Republic’s most experienced and internationally recognised figures. A veteran of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the Iran-Iraq war, he later headed state broadcaster IRIB for a decade from 1994, before serving as parliamentary speaker from 2008 to 2020. He had led nuclear negotiations with the West and, on 1 March, announced he would head an interim committee responsible for running the country in the wake of Khamenei’s death.
Born in Najaf, Iraq in 1957 to a prominent Shia cleric with close ties to the Islamic Republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Larijani came from one of Iran’s most politically influential families. His death leaves a significant gap in the regime’s remaining senior leadership at a critical point in the conflict.
