Both security official Ali Larijani and Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani were “eliminated last night," Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. Iran's 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died in an airstrike Feb. 28, the first day of the war launched by the United States and Israel, and other top leaders from the Iranian theocracy have been killed since then.
Iranian state media did not immediately confirm either death. However, it said a message from Larijani’s office would be published shortly.
The announcement came after the Israeli military had earlier said it had carried out a “wide-scale wave of strikes” across Iran's capital and stepped up strikes on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Israel also reported two incoming salvos before dawn from Iran at Tel Aviv and elsewhere, and said Hezbollah targeted Israel’s north.
Larijani hails from one of Iran’s most famous political families. A former parliamentary speaker and senior policy adviser, he was appointed to advise the late Khamenei on strategy in nuclear talks with the Trump administration.
He also served as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, its top security body.
Soleimani, meantime, was the head of the Basij militia forces, which Israel's military called an “armed apparatus of the Iranian terror regime.”
“During internal protests in Iran, particularly in recent periods as demonstrations intensified, Basij forces under Soleimani’s command led the main repression operations, employing severe violence, widespread arrests and the use of force against civilian demonstrators,” Israel's military said in a statement.
Meanwhile, incoming Iranian missiles on the United Arab Emirates prompted Dubai, a major transit hub for international travel, to briefly shut its airspace and a man was killed by the debris of a missile intercepted over Abu Dhabi.
