Iran’s Supreme National Security Council has officially confirmed the death of its secretary, Ali Larijani, alongside several high-ranking officials in what appears to be a targeted attack. The announcement, disseminated through Iran’s Tasnim news agency early Wednesday, revealed that Larijani perished alongside his son Morteza Larijani and Alireza Bayat, deputy for security affairs at the council’s secretariat, among other casualties.
The security council’s statement lauded Larijani’s extensive contributions to Iran’s developmental trajectory and issued a call for national solidarity in confronting external security challenges. This development occurs against a backdrop of intensifying regional hostilities, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly claiming responsibility for Larijani’s elimination during ongoing military operations against Iranian targets.
Simultaneously, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps verified the death of Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij volunteer force, attributing his killing to a coordinated US-Israeli offensive. These significant casualties emerge within a broader context of escalating violence that commenced on February 28 with joint American-Israeli strikes against Iranian interests, prompting retaliatory measures from Tehran and its regional allies against Israeli and US assets throughout the Middle East.
The elimination of such prominent security figures represents a substantial escalation in the ongoing regional power struggle, potentially altering the strategic calculus of all involved parties and raising concerns about further military escalation and regional destabilization.