Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security, arrives in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 27, 2025, to attend the memorial service for Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Courtney Bonneau | AFP | Getty Images
Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz announced on Tuesday that Iranian security chief Ali Larijani was killed in an overnight airstrike.
According to Reuters, Katz said in a statement that he had been informed by the military that both Larijani and Iranian Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani had been killed.
Iran has not yet confirmed this report.
A message purported to be from Larijani was published on social media Tuesday morning. According to Google Translate, the post showed a handwritten message in memory of the slain Iranian navy sailors.
Larijani was seen as the right-hand man of Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who was killed in an attack targeting senior Iranian officials at the start of the war on February 28.
Since then, Iran has retaliated by attacking its Gulf neighbors and targeting ships attempting to transit through the strategically important Strait of Hormuz.
Gholamreza Soleimani, a senior member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and commander of the Basij forces, attends a Basij week rally in Tehran, the capital of Iran, on November 24, 2019.
Atta Kenare | AFP | Getty Images
Iranian General Soleimani led the Basij Army, the main militia used to suppress protests in the Islamic Republic.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced in a social media post Tuesday morning that Netanyahu had ordered the removal of senior Iranian regime officials.
According to social media accounts under his name, Larijani was last seen in public on March 13, when he posted a photo of himself participating in a Quds Day march in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
An earlier post on the account said Iran was not afraid of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats against Iran and said, “Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation.”
“Be careful — don’t be excluded!” The account was posted on March 10, according to the translation.
The US-Israel-led war against Iran entered its 18th day on Tuesday with continued attacks from both sides.
Iran has targeted energy and transportation infrastructure in the United Arab Emirates as part of retaliatory attacks, raising concerns about a protracted global energy crisis.
