Israel said it killed Ali Larijani, Iran’s security chief, in targeted airstrikes on Monday, with Defence Minister Israel Katz stating he was “eliminated” in an operation aimed at senior members of Iran’s leadership. According to israeli media Larijani was tragetted with his son, while staying in a hideout apartments.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I directed the IDF to continue to hunt down the leadership of the terror and oppression regime in Iran and cut off the head of the octopus again and again and prevent it from regrowing,” Katz said in a statement.
However, a newly circulated image—shared by Iranian news outlets and on Larijani’s Telegram and X accounts—appears to show a handwritten message attributed to him. The message, reportedly from today but lacking a visible timestamp, praises members of the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy and coincides with funeral ceremonies for sailors killed aboard the IRIS Dena warship earlier this month.
As reported by BBC, Larijani, a former nuclear negotiator and close ally of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was last seen publicly participating in Quds Day rallies in Tehran last on March 13. His death, if confirmed, would make him the most senior Iranian official killed after Khamenei, who was assasinated on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran. Larijani had been “described as a moderate conservative in recent years”, according to the BBC.
Other Targets and Military Goals
The Israeli military said it also killed Brig. Gen. Gholamreza Soleimani, who had served as commander of the Basij for the past six years, during Monday’s strikes. The Basij is mostly a volunteer paramilitary force with units embedded across Iran.
The operation comes shortly after the U.S. offered up to $10 million for information on senior Iranian military and intelligence officials, including Larijani, in a bid to weaken the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ leadership.
