Israel: Iranian official Larijani killed

Iran war

Israel: Iranian official Larijani killed

The 67-year-old Secretary General of the Security Council was considered one of the most influential figures in the Iranian leadership. He is said to have been killed in an air raid. The consequences are unclear.

Israel says it has killed more top Iranian leaders. The influential Secretary General of the Security Council Ali Larijani was killed in a targeted attack overnight, said Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.

The 67-year-old Larijani had recently risen to become a central figure in the Iranian power apparatus. There was initially no confirmation from Tehran. The political and military consequences are unclear.

In addition, the commander of the Iranian Basij units, Brigadier General Gholamresa Soleimani, was killed, the Israeli military said. There was no confirmation of this from Iran either. The Basij units under Soleimani’s leadership were responsible for the bloody suppression of protests in Iran in January, the Israeli army wrote.

Israel has already killed dozens of leading figures in the Iranian power apparatus in the Iran war, including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The fate of his successor and son Moschtaba Khamenei remains uncertain.

Iran, for its part, continued its attacks. The Islamic Republic targeted targets in Israel, Kuwait, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, among others. Meanwhile, the Iranian capital and metropolis of millions, Tehran, was again heavily bombed.

Larijani’s death would not paralyze the country’s decision-making structures “as the system is designed to absorb such losses,” wrote Iran expert Hamidreza Aziz. However, his loss could “gradually reduce the circle of experienced political decision-makers and shift the influence more towards military-oriented actors,” said the visiting scientist at the Science and Politics Foundation on X.

Larijani was considered an important voice who also represented Iran externally. His killing will therefore make it more difficult for the USA to find a negotiated solution to a possible end to the war, said Simon Wolfgang Fuchs, professor of Islamic studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on X. This is entirely in Israel’s interest.

From the perspective of Israeli Iran expert Meir Javedanfar, Larijani was a comparatively competent politician in the Iranian political system. But Israel and the US wanted Iran to be run by incompetent people, he wrote on

Larijani was appointed to the Security Council post in August 2025. He had previously worked as an advisor to the religious leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who was killed on February 28.

Larijani studied mathematics and was considered a “man of the system”, but in recent years he has also repeatedly represented more moderate positions. Like many politicians today, he initially made a career in the Revolutionary Guards and rose to the rank of brigadier general before retiring from active service in the early 1990s.