The Israeli Ministry of Defense stated this Tuesday (17) that it had killed one of the most powerful figures in the Iranian regime who had escaped until the moment of the attacks: Ali Larijani, leader of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
A trusted man of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Larijani was tasked with ensuring the survival of the Islamic regime. Iranian sources told the newspaper The New York Times weeks ago that he had been effectively governing the country behind the scenes during pre-war negotiations with the US and Israel.
He was even described by the Iranian press as “the most important man in the country, second only to key figures such as Mukhta Khamenei”.
Larijani was recently targeted by US sanctions due to his leading role in repressing protests against the Islamic regime, which resulted in hundreds of deaths. He has also been involved in recent years in nuclear negotiations with the US and has become an influential political coordinator with Russia and China, dictatorships that have moved closer to Tehran in the last decade.
He joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in 1981 and served as a commander during the early years of the Iran-Iraq war. Later, he attended a religious seminary, but ended up pursuing another degree, in computer science and mathematics.
In the 1990s, during the presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani, he served as Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, a position he retained under Mohammad Khatami. In 1994, Khamenei appointed him director of state broadcasting, a position he held for a decade, and in 2004 he became Khamenei’s representative on the Supreme National Security Council.
In 2005, after passing through different sectors of the regime, he ran for president for the first time, but received less than 10% of the votes in the first round. After that, Larijani was appointed secretary general of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), at which time he also took charge of Iran’s nuclear negotiations, but ended up being fired by then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Last year, he returned to his former role as head of the Supreme National Security Council and rose to prominence as Iran’s top security official following the 12-day war with Israel last June.
The last time he appeared in public was last Friday, when he participated, alongside other officials and thousands of people, in a march in the Iranian capital to challenge threats against Iran and express his rejection of the war.
On the eve of the attacks that resulted in his death, according to Israel, he released a message criticizing several Muslim governments for not supporting Tehran — a position he described as contrary to Islam — and stated that the US and Israel are in a “strategic dilemma.”
Netanyahu says new high-level deaths weaken Iranian regime
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that with the assassination of the last two top Iranian commanders, they are “weakening this regime with the hope of giving the Iranian people the opportunity to overthrow it.”
In a video released by his office, Netanyahu referred to Israel’s announcement that it killed the secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, and the commander of the Basij paramilitary militia (under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), Gholamreza Soleimani.
“We are weakening this regime with the hope of giving the Iranian people the opportunity to overthrow it. It won’t happen immediately and it won’t be easy. But if we persevere, we will give them the opportunity to take control of their destiny,” he declared.
