Ali Larijani, a senior Iranian security official, and Gen. Gholam Reza Soleimani, the head of Iran’s internal-security apparatus, were killed in strikes Israel announced Tuesday, according to the Associated Press report. Iranian authorities later confirmed both deaths as the war between Israel and Iran widened and as U.S. and Israeli strikes hit top leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the AP report said.
Israel’s military said the strikes killed Larijani in an overnight operation, and Iranian authorities confirmed the death. The AP report described Larijani as a conservative figure with deep ties inside the theocracy, including a long record of tightening hard-line controls and holding senior roles in governance before later leading the Supreme National Security Council.
The report said Larijani came from one of Iran’s prominent political families. It cited that his brother Sadeq served as head of the judiciary, and another brother, Mohammad Javad, was a senior diplomat who advised the late Khamenei on foreign affairs. It also said Larijani served as Iran’s culture minister in the 1990s, then as parliament speaker from 2008 to 2020, before becoming head of the Supreme National Security Council.
According to the AP report, Larijani also wrote multiple philosophy books, including works that explored German philosopher Immanuel Kant. It added that he had been appointed to advise Khamenei on strategy in nuclear talks with the Trump administration and that he traveled to Oman to meet with mediators about two weeks before the war began. The report said Larijani, like other top Iranian leaders, was under heavy U.S. sanctions and implicated in violent repression of mass protests in January.
The AP report said Larijani was not eligible to become supreme leader because he is not a Shiite cleric, but he was widely expected to be a top adviser. It also said many believed he had effectively run the country as U.S. and Israeli strikes pushed Iranian leadership underground, and it noted that the Supreme National Security Council said Larijani’s son, Morteza Larijani, was also killed.
The AP report included a post on X in which Larijani responded to Donald Trump’s threats over oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. In that message, Larijani wrote, “The sacrificial nation of Iran doesn’t fear your empty threats. Even those bigger than you couldn’t eliminate Iran,” adding, “Be careful not to get eliminated yourself.”
Israel’s strike announcement also targeted Soleimani, the AP report said, describing him as the head of the Basij, a largely volunteer paramilitary force described as fiercely loyal to the Islamic Republic. The report said Soleimani is not related to Gen. Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian general Israel killed in a U.S. strike in 2020, and it said less was known about the later Soleimani’s role and background.
The AP report said an Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, told it that Soleimani was killed in a combat tent alongside other Basij commanders who were using it as a makeshift headquarters. The report further said Israel has targeted several Basij bases as part of its wider campaign.
The report said Gholam Reza Soleimani was born in the mid-1960s in the western Iranian city of Farsan and that he first joined the Basij as a volunteer in 1984 during the Iran-Iraq war, when it was known for human-wave attacks against fortified Iraqi positions. It also said he became commander of the Basij in 2019.
In addition to leadership detail, the AP report described the Basij as numbering in the hundreds of thousands and including military-style brigades and anti-riot units, as well as a network of informers that it said spy on Iranian society. It said that during protests, plainclothes Basij members can often be seen attacking, beating, and hauling away demonstrators, and it cited that the U.S. Treasury said the Basij killed “hundreds of Iranian men, women and children” when it cracked down on protests in 2019.
The AP report said thousands were killed and tens of thousands detained during an uprising in January, calling it the bloodiest crackdown since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It said the crackdown attracted attention from Trump, who threatened to intervene on the protesters’ behalf before turning his focus to Iran’s nuclear program.
While Israel has killed senior Iranian figures, the AP report said the leadership deaths have so far had little impact on the war’s pace. It said Iran’s Revolutionary Guard continued firing missiles at Israel and Arab Gulf countries, and that Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz—through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes—sending prices up and rattling the world economy.
The AP report said Netanyahu described the strikes as aimed at weakening Iran’s government “to give the Iranian people the opportunity to remove it.” It added that there have been no signs of anti-government protests since the war began, with many Iranians sheltering from American and Israeli strikes.