Iran’s national security chief Ali Larijani, Basij commander Soleimani assassinated in US-Israeli strikes

Iran’s national security chief Ali Larijani and the commander of paramilitary force Basij, Gholamreza Soleimani, were assassinated in US-Israeli strikes on Tuesday.

The confirmation of Larijani’s assassination came hours after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had been “eliminated last night”, along with the commander of Tehran’s Basij paramilitary force.

“I have just been updated by the chief of staff that Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and the head of the Basij — Iran’s central repression apparatus — (Soleimani), were eliminated last night,” Katz said in a statement released by his ministry.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council later confirmed Larijani’s assassination, saying: “The pure souls of the martyrs embraced the purified soul of God’s righteous servant, martyr Dr Ali Larijani.”

It added that Larijani’s son and his bodyguards had died with him.

“After a lifetime of struggle for the advancement of Iran and of the Islamic Revolution, he ultimately attained his long-held aspiration, answered the divine call, and honourably achieved the sweet grace of martyrdom in the trench of service,” the council said.

Larijani, 67, was assassinated by a US-Israeli air attack as he was visiting his daughter in the eastern outskirts of a Tehran suburb, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said.

Meanwhile, a post on Larijani’s X account said in Farsi: “O beloved nation and people of Iran! … A servant of God has joined his Lord as a martyr.”

Earlier, Fars reported that Basij commander Soleimani had also been assassinated in a US-Israeli strike.

“This cowardly assassination reflects the importance and role of the Basij in the comprehensive battlefield against the terrorist army of the United States and the Zionist regime and their mercenaries, especially in the recent war,” it quoted Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as saying in a statement.

The IRGC also warned of “bloodlust” following Soleimani’s assassination, according to Al Jazeera.

“We warn the evil and terrorist murderers of this high-ranking martyr that the Basij will never abandon the bloodlust of the martyred leader, martyred commanders, and various members of the people’s martyrs,” the IRGC said.

Instead, their deaths would “double the will of the heroic Iranian nation and all the Basij fighters to continue the path of resistance”, the group added.

Tuesday’s assassinations are the most high profile ones after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s — Iran’s supreme leader — on February 28, when the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, setting off a conflict that has spilled over into the Middle East.

The US and Israel say they seek a regime change in Iran and the Israeli military said on Tuesday they would hunt down Iran’s new supreme leader and Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei.

“We don’t know about Mojtaba Khamenei, we don’t hear him, we don’t see him, but I can tell you one thing: we will track him down, find him, and neutralise him,” military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin told reporters.