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Israel announced Tuesday that an overnight airstrike killed Ali Larijani, Iran’s top national security official and a former adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamaeni, potentially upending the Iranian control structure as the war continues.
Iranian state media confirmed Larijani was killed in the Israeli airstrike, he was 67. The Israeli military had said he was caught in attacks targeting the Islamic republic’s security apparatus.
The Israeli military also announced that the same airstrike killed Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Basij volunteer paramilitary organization. Iran has not confirmed his death either. Israeli and U.S. airstrikes have repeatedly targeted Basij command centers and checkpoints since the start of the war last month.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the killings are intended to disrupt Iran’s control apparatus and create the conditions for Iranians to overthrow the Islamic republic.
“We are undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people an opportunity to remove it,” he said in an address on Tuesday.
President Trump, in the Oval Office on Tuesday, said Mr. Larijani was responsible for killing 32,000 people in Iran’s crackdown of anti-government protests in January.
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Moments after the Israeli military announced that it killed Mr. Larijani, his X account posted an image of a handwritten statement honoring Iranian sailors killed in U.S. strikes.
If confirmed, Mr. Larijani’s death would mark the most significant blow to Iran’s leadership structure since the death of Khamenei in an Israeli airstrike on Feb. 28. After that, Mr. Larijani exercised near total control over how Iran conducted its war against the U.S. and Israel.
Despite not serving on Iran’s three-member interim Leadership Council, which was formed after the death of Khamenei, Mr. Larijani maintained extensive ties to Iranian military and religious leaders, giving him outsized influence over the selection of the next supreme leader.
However, Mr. Larijani reportedly opposed the selection of Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamanei, the son of the late Khamenei, whom Iran’s Assembly of Experts appointed this month. During deliberations, Mr. Larijani told the assembly that Mr. Khamanei would be a divisive figure during a sensitive time for Iran.
Mr. Larijani’s opposition to Mr. Khamanei’s appointment suggested a desire to retain control over Iran during wartime and to moderate the country’s global position as it enters the third week of a costly war.
While Mr. Khamanei has not yet appeared in public since assuming his role of supreme leader, his public statements have indicated that he has no desire to deviate from his father’s aggressive posture toward Israel and the U.S. In his first address, delivered by Iranian state media, he declared that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until all U.S. and Israeli attacks cease.
By contrast, Mr. Larijani was seen by some as a pragmatist who was able to balance the necessary pageantry of Islamist ideology with political connections to facilitate strategic diplomacy.
He was an integral force behind the most recent round of U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations and worked to build Tehran’s ties with Russia and China. His engagement with U.S. diplomats made him one of the possible choices to run a post-ayatollah Iran.
Still, Mr. Larijani’s role in brutally suppressing the nationwide protests in January may have permanently stained his image as an acceptable moderate among Western leaders. In his role as leader of Iran’s National Security Council, he carried out Khamenei’s orders to crush the anti-clerical protests “without leniency.”
Thousands of protesters were killed in January by Iranian security forces, who deployed live ammunition and military vehicles against crowds of demonstrators.
It’s unclear what effect Mr. Larijani’s death could have on Iran’s internal stability. Despite an outpouring of enthusiasm from Iranians after the death of Khamaeni, no massive anti-government protests have been recorded.
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