#IranConfirmsLarijaniAssassinated

Iran Confirms Larijani Assassinated: Top Security Chief Killed in Israeli Strike, Region Braces for Escalation

Iran has officially confirmed the assassination of Ali Larijani, the secretary of the country's Supreme National Security Council, in a targeted Israeli airstrike in Tehran. The killing of Larijani, one of the Islamic Republic's most powerful and influential figures, marks a dramatic escalation in the ongoing conflict between Iran and the US-Israel alliance and has triggered immediate retaliatory strikes and widespread fears of a broader regional war .

Who Was Ali Larijani

Ali Larijani was not just another Iranian official. Born in 1958, he was a decades long veteran of the Iranian establishment, serving in a series of the most critical roles within the government. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, he joined the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps in the early 1980s before transitioning to government service. He served as Culture Minister from 1994 to 1997 and later became Iran's chief nuclear negotiator during the early stages of the nuclear crisis, playing a key role in the process that ultimately led to the nuclear agreement .

In 2008, Larijani was elected as the speaker of the Iranian parliament, a position he held until 2020. He attempted to run for president in 2021 and again in 2024, but was disqualified by the Constitutional Council on both occasions. Following the 12 day war between Israel, the United States, and Iran in 2025, President Masoud Pezeshkian appointed Larijani as the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council .

In the wake of the killing of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an Israeli strike in February, Larijani emerged as a de facto wartime leader and the key architect of Iran's military and diplomatic strategy. He was seen as the ultimate insider, a crucial link between Iran's political establishment, its military apparatus, and its clerical leadership, involved in both international negotiations and internal security operations . Israeli officials and media described him as the flesh and blood of the Iranian clerical regime and a high value target due to his central role in managing the country's response to the conflict .

The Assassination

According to the Israel Defense Forces, they carried out precision airstrikes in Tehran that killed Larijani alongside Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of Iran's Basij volunteer force. Iran's Supreme National Security Council later confirmed that Larijani died early Tuesday alongside his son Morteza Larijani, the deputy for security affairs at the council's secretariat Alireza Bayat, and several others .

Reports suggest Larijani was hit while visiting his daughter's residence in the suburbs of the capital. An Israeli official later claimed that the assassination was made possible thanks to valuable intelligence that Israeli intelligence services received from residents of Tehran over the preceding 24 hours. The official stated that in recent days, Larijani had behaved arrogantly, appearing frequently in public at mass rallies and in engagements with local and international media, which exposed him to public view and ultimately led to his identification .

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later confirmed Israel's role in the killing, stating that Israel had eliminated two major terrorist leaders of this oppressive regime and adding that there are many more surprises. He also shared a video surrounded by top commanders, celebrating the operation and linking it to the Nowruz holiday .

Immediate Aftermath and Retaliation

The assassination was met with immediate and fierce condemnation from Tehran. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian confirmed the killings in a post on X, stating that the cowardly assassination of his dear colleagues Esmail Khatib, Ali Larijani and Aziz Nasirzadeh, along with some of their family members and members of their accompanying teams, has left us in mourning .

Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, offered his condolences and hinted at swift retaliation, stating that the killers of security chief Ali Larijani will have to pay for it. He added that every drop of spilled blood comes at a price, and the criminal murderers of these martyrs will soon have to pay it .

The military response was not long in coming. Iran launched a barrage of missiles targeting central Israel, including near Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Beersheba, carrying cluster warheads in what state media described as retaliation for the killing of Larijani and other officials. Iranian authorities said the strikes killed two people near Tel Aviv. The use of cluster munitions, which release multiple smaller explosives over a wide area, was seen as an effort to slip past Israel's air defences and spread wider damage .

Iranian commanders issued stark warnings. Major General Amir Hatami, chief of the Iranian army, threatened a decisive and regrettable response, while Major General Ali Abdollahi, commander of Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, threatened US President Donald Trump with a more devastating response, stating that POTUS must wait for our surprises . The IRGC itself declared that it would certainly not forget the bloodlust of this great martyr and other martyrs .

International Reactions and Escalation

The killing of Larijani drew sharp international reactions. Russia condemned the killing, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stating, We certainly condemn actions intended to harm health or, even more so, to kill representatives of the leadership of a sovereign and independent Iran, as well as other countries. We condemn such actions . Hamas also condemned the treacherous Israeli strike, praising Larijani's support for the Palestinian cause .

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan lashed out at Israel, condemning its political assassinations of Tehran's leaders as illegal activities outside the normal laws of war . The United States, meanwhile, continued its military operations. The US military's Central Command announced it had struck more than 7,800 targets and damaged or destroyed more than 120 Iranian vessels. In a significant move, the US dropped several 5,000 pound deep penetrator munitions on hardened Iranian missile sites along Iran's coastline near the Strait of Hormuz, which it said posed a risk to international shipping in the strait .

The conflict also spread to other regions. Rocket and drone attacks by Iran resumed near the US Embassy in Baghdad, and an Iranian missile struck near Australia's military headquarters in the UAE. In Lebanon, Israeli strikes on central Beirut killed at least 12 people, and the health ministry reported dozens wounded . The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that a structure 350 meters from Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant reactor was hit and destroyed, though there was no damage to the reactor itself .

A Controversial Killing: Strategic Blunder or Calculated Escalation

While the assassination of Larijani is a tactical success for Israel, several analysts and commentators have raised questions about its strategic wisdom. The US-Israel war was initially framed as an effort to decapitate Iran's hardline leadership and potentially trigger regime change. However, the killing of Larijani, who was seen by many as a pragmatic consensus builder, may have done the opposite .

Larijani was described by experts as one of the last Iranian leaders who combined ideological loyalty with pragmatic engagement in decision-making. He was viewed as a key figure who favoured talks with the US and could have built consensus within the system for an Iranian off ramp to end the conflict. By eliminating him, the Israelis might have removed any scope of dialogue and pushed Iran into deeper hardline control .

Middle East expert Vali Nasr warned that with every assassination, the US and Israel are engineering greater radicalisation of Iran's leadership. He noted that Larijani's replacement will be appointed by IRGC, making for a bleak future for Iran, Iranians, the region and ultimately make it far more difficult for the US to disentangle itself from endless conflict in the region .

Some analysts have suggested that this may be a deliberate ploy by Israel to keep the war going. Israel may not want the war to stop before degrading Iran's military power to the extent that it is unable to strike it in decades. Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute argued that the Israeli strike might have been aimed at literally killing off Trump's off-ramps, reducing chances for peace talks. He stated that without figures like Larijani in the Iranian system, Trump's pathways to ending the war just got narrower .

The Bigger Picture

The assassination of Ali Larijani is the most prominent killing of an Iranian official since the initial strikes on February 28 that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and ignited the current war. His death represents a major loss for Iran's leadership at a time of immense national trial and has sparked intense retaliatory attacks that show no signs of abating .

As the region reels from the latest escalation, the prospects for peace appear increasingly dim. With the so called pragmatic voices within the Iranian hierarchy being systematically eliminated, power is consolidating in the hands of hardliners who see compromise as weakness. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that the international order is experiencing a calculated moral collapse, where rules exist only for adversaries and impunity is reserved for allies . As the war enters its twentieth day, with missiles flying over major cities and global oil supplies threatened, the killing of Ali Larijani may prove to be not an end, but a new and more dangerous beginning.