Israel said it had killed Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official and one of the leaders steering the Islamic republic since the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the start of the war.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday that Larijani, one of the regime’s most senior civilian leaders, was killed in an overnight strike. Katz pledged to continue the campaign of assassinations, in which the heads of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and armed forces have also been killed.
“I have instructed the IDF to continue pursuing the leadership of the . . . regime in Iran,” Katz said in a televised statement.
Larijani was last seen in public last week at a pro-regime rally to mark Quds Day, held annually on the last Friday of Ramadan, which Iranian leaders used to project defiance against the US and Israel.
During the gathering, Larijani told local media that US President Donald Trump lacked “the intellect” to understand that Iranians were “a courageous, strong and determined nation”.
The 67-year-old was the scion of a prominent clerical family, considered to be a conservative but also pragmatic. He was a former nuclear negotiator who returned to prominence as a senior confidant of supreme leader Khamenei after Israel’s previous war on Iran in June 2025.
There was no comment about Larijani from the Iranian government on Tuesday. Around the time that Israel said it had killed him, Larijani’s social media account posted a purported handwritten note in which he eulogised members of Iran’s navy killed in the war.
“These martyrdoms will strengthen the foundation of the Islamic republic’s army for years to come,” the note said.
According to the Iranian Red Crescent, at least 1,200 people have been killed in Iran during the nearly three-week-old US-Israeli war, which has destabilised the region and sent oil prices soaring.
Israeli officials have also hinted that Khamenei’s son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, remains in their crosshairs for assassination. He has not been seen in public since his father’s killing and is believed to have been injured.
Israel said Larijani was killed on the same night as Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Basij volunteer paramilitary force that is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards. Iran did not confirm Soleimani’s death.
Israel has repeatedly struck the Basij, which is responsible for domestic security during the war, while urging Iranians opposed to the regime to rise up against their government.
Khamenei appointed Larijani as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, making him Iran’s top security official, after the June war, in which Iran’s nuclear facilities were severely damaged by a US-Israeli bombing campaign.
At the time, Iranian analysts said Larijani’s appointment was a sign that the supreme leader was willing to test the possibility that the Islamic republic could strike a deal with Trump over its nuclear programme.
Rob Malley, a former US official who served as President Joe Biden’s Iran envoy, said: “He was one of the smarter, maybe quote-unquote ‘pragmatic’ members of the leadership, and one of the ones they called upon because of his experience when they face these kinds of situations.”
But Larijani later told a private meeting of Iranian analysts that he realised Washington was not willing to reach an agreement, according to Saeed Laylaz, an analyst who attended the gathering.
The Iranian opposition accuses Larijani of being the architect of the brutal repression of anti-government protests that gripped Iran in December and January, in which rights groups estimate that thousands of people were killed by the regime.
A long-standing stalwart of the regime, he was a veteran of the Revolutionary Guards and had held various senior posts in the Islamic republic.
This included a long stint as parliamentary speaker. He led the assembly when it ratified the 2015 nuclear deal Iran signed with the US and other world powers, which Trump abandoned during his first term.
Larijani, who had a PhD in philosophy and had been on the faculty at the University of Tehran, had also served as culture minister and headed Iran’s state television.
But, before Khamenei turned to him after the June war, Larijani had been pushed to the margins of the regime because of his relationship with former president Hassan Rouhani, who negotiated the nuclear accord. Larijani was prevented from running for president in 2021 and 2024.
After Khamenei was killed, the key civilian wartime leaders were believed to be President Masoud Pezeshkian, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — the speaker of parliament, a powerful regime loyalist close to the guards — and Larijani.
Malley said it was too early to gauge the impact of Larijani’s death on the regime, adding: “They have suffered a number of what would be considered pretty dramatic blows.”
“In the case of Iran, you have a country where decisions seem quite institutionalised, and not as dependent on personality,” Malley said. “That doesn’t mean that at some point they don’t lose so much of their top brass that it becomes very difficult to make decisions.”
As part of its preparations for the war, the authorities decentralised military decision-making to prevent its forces from being incapacitated by assassinations of top commanders, regime insiders and analysts say.
“They are following a play book that was decided before the war and is being implemented by people who have authority despite the absence of the kind of leadership they had in the past,” Malley said.
