Iran says two senior figures at the top of its power structure are dead after Israeli strikes near Tehran, marking one of the most severe hits to its leadership since the war began. State media confirmed the deaths of Ali Larijani, who led the Supreme National Security Council and briefly served as Iran's acting leader after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed at the start of the war, and Brig. Gen. Gholamreza Soleimani, who commanded a major plainclothes force tied to the Revolutionary Guards, the New York Times reports. Larijani's son, Morteza, responsible for his father's security, was also reported killed.
According to state media, Soleimani was killed as he met with commanders of the all-volunteer Basij force, which played a major role in violent crackdowns on protests earlier this year, the AP reports. Tehran's outlets hailed Larijani as a martyr and paired his image with that of the late supreme leader, underscoring his status as a central power broker and one of the few figures seen as able to deal with Washington. His removal could tilt influence toward more hardline voices who favor continued confrontation, the Times reports.
- "The regime will certainly be less sophisticated now," Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer, tells the Washington Post. "They just don't have a deep bench of folks who can think things through well."
At the White House, President Trump said Larijani had "a lot of blood on his hands" and defended the war, claiming the US had dismantled both Iran's military and its nuclear threat. Asked about a potential Vietnam-like quagmire, he replied he was "not afraid of anything" and said US forces would leave "in the near future," without offering a specific timeline.
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