Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Tuesday that Iran’s national security chief Ali Larijani and the commander of Tehran’s Basij paramilitary force, Gholamreza Soleimani, were “eliminated last night.”
If confirmed, Larijani’s killing would mark the highest-profile assassination since the U.S.-Israeli strikes that ignited the war on February 28, which also claimed Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and other top figures.
Katz, citing Israel’s military chief, stated the two had “joined Khamenei, the head of the annihilation program, along with all those eliminated from the axis of evil in the depths of hell.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office shared a photo of him on the phone, captioned: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders the elimination of senior figures in the Iranian regime.”
Israel’s military confirmed earlier that it had killed Soleimani, Basij commander for six years, in a “precise strike in Tehran.” The Basij, a volunteer arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, led brutal crackdowns on mass protests that rocked the country and peaked in January, resulting in thousands killed and tens of thousands arrested, per rights groups.
Military chief Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir noted “significant preventive achievements” from overnight operations.