Israel says it has killed Iran’s top security official

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Israel said it had killed Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official and one of the key leaders steering the Islamic republic during its war with the US and Israel.

As Iran’s top security official, Larijani was one of the most powerful members of the Iranian regime and was seen as one of the key civilian figures leading the Islamic republic after Israel killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening salvos of the war on February 28.

Israel defence minister Israel Katz said Larijani had been targeted and killed in an overnight strike.

Katz warned that Israel’s assassinations and targeted killings would continue, nearly three weeks into a joint US-Israeli war that has destabilised the region, sent oil prices soaring and killed at least 1,200 people in Iran, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.

“I have instructed the IDF to continue pursuing the leadership of the . . . regime in Iran,” he said in a televised statement.

There was no confirmation or comment from the Iranian government.

Israeli officials have 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 the same night as Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Basij volunteer paramilitary force that is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran did not confirm the 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.

Larijani, 67, was the scion of a prominent clerical family, considered to be a conservative but pragmatic. He was a former nuclear negotiator who returned to prominence as a senior confidante of Khamenei after Israel’s June 2025 war.

After the war, in which Iran’s nuclear facilities were severely damaged by a joint US-Israeli bombing campaign, Khamenei appointed him secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, making him Iran’s top security official.

At the time, Iranian analysts said the appointment was a sign that the supreme leader was willing to test the possibility that the Islamic republic could strike a deal with US President Donald Trump over its nuclear programme.

But Larijani later told a private meeting of Iranian analysts that he realised that the US was not willing to reach an agreement, according to Saeed Laylez, an analyst who attended the gathering.

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.”

The Iranian opposition accuses him 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.

Iranian media reported that Larijani had a PhD in philosophy and had been on the faculty at the University of Tehran.

He had held major posts in the Iranian government, including a long stint as parliamentary speaker, and led the assembly when it ratified the 2015 nuclear deal Iran signed with the US and other world powers. He also served as culture minister and headed Iran’s state television.

But he was pushed to the margins of the regime because of his relationship with former president Hassan Rouhani, who negotiated the nuclear accord.

In 2018 Trump ripped up the deal, which was bitterly opposed by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran subsequently increased its enrichment of uranium.

Larijani was also prevented from running for president in 2021 and 2024, before Khamenei turned to him after the June war.