Iran's Security Chief Assassinated

(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Israel said Tuesday it had killed Iran's powerful national security chief, Ali Larijani.

Larijani's death would be a massive blow to Iran just weeks after US-Israeli strikes on February 28 killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the republic's long-serving supreme leader, throwing the Middle East into war and upending global markets.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Larijani was "eliminated last night", although this has not been confirmed by Iran.

"This morning we eliminated Ali Larijani, the boss of the Revolutionary Guards," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement.

An AFP reporter had earlier Tuesday reported blasts in Tehran, and the reported assassination comes as strikes shook countries across the Middle East from the Gulf to Iraq and Lebanon.

Iranian authorities called on people to rally nationwide Tuesday to defy enemy "plots" on a night usually marked by Persian new year celebrations.

Larijani, 68, has been described as a key pillar in the ruling system, close to the late ayatollah and central to the government's nuclear policy and strategic diplomacy over decades.

After the war broke out, he became even more powerful.

While the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen in public since he was appointed to replace his slain father, Larijani walked with crowds at a pro-government rally last week in Tehran.

"He has effectively been the figure in charge of the regime's survival, its regional policy and its defence strategy," David Khalfa, co-founder of the Atlantic Middle East Forum, told AFP.

"It's the supreme leader who gives the order, but he is the one who carries it out. He is the right-hand man."

Shortly after Israel said it had killed him, Larijani's official social media profiles posted a handwritten note by him paying tribute to Iranian sailors killed in a US submarine attack this month.

The note was not dated, nor did the post address the claim of his death.

Israel also said Tuesday it had killed Gholamreza Soleimani, head of the Basij paramilitary force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, in a strike in Tehran.

And it said it had targeted Akram al-Ajouri, head of the military wing of the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in a strike in Iran, though he was not confirmed dead.

Ali Larijani killed national security chief war

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