Iran has confirmed the death of Ali Larijani, the Islamic Republic’s national security chief. Larijani was a key figure in its wartime leadership.
The confirmation of his death from Iran came hours after Israel announced earlier that it had killed him in an overnight airstrike. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which Larijani helmed, acknowledged his death in a statement, according to Bloomberg, quoting from semi-official Tasnim news agency. The statement said he was killed alongside his son, Morteza.
Also Read | Iran confirms deaths of security chief Ali Larijani and Basij chief Soleimani
Larijani, 67, was killed while visiting his daughter in the eastern outskirts of Pardis district, a Tehran suburb, Reuters reported, citing Fars news agency.
On Tuesday, Israel, which has described Larijani as Iran’s de-facto leader, said it had “eliminated” him in an overnight raid that also killed the commander of the country’s paramilitary Basij unit. The Basij commander’s death was earlier confirmed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Who was Ali Larijani? Larijani was the scion of a leading clerical family in Iran with brothers who rose to high positions after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He was seen as canny and pragmatic but always fiercely determined to uphold Iran's theocratic system of government, Reuters said.
A Revolutionary Guard Corps commander during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Larijani became head of Iran'snational broadcaster before serving as head of the Supreme National Security Council on either side of his membership of parliament, where he served as speaker for 12 years.
Larijani also held deputy ministerial posts in labour and information in the early post-revolution years.
From 1992 to 1994, under President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, he was Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, enforcing strict cultural and media controls.
Also Read | Netanyahu dismisses death rumors yet again— then issues chilling warning to Iran
Larijani headed the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the state media monopoly, from 1994 to 2004. And in 2005, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Larijani became Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, resigning in 2007 amid policy clashes.
Larijani served as Speaker of Iranian Parliament (Majlis) for 12 years from 2008 to 2020.
C hief nuclear negotiator As chief nuclear negotiator from 2005 to 2007, Larijani was responsible for defending what Tehran says is its right to enrich uranium - a process required to make fuel for a nuclear power plant but which can also yield material for a warhead.
Pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme had ratcheted up after the discovery in 2003 that the country had enrichment facilities it had not disclosed to international inspectors, prompting fears it was seeking a bomb and leading to sanctions.
Iran always denied wanting a bomb.
In a 2015 CNN interview, Larijani praised the deal negotiated by the Barack Obama administration that limited Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, describing it as “a beginning for better understanding of other issues.”
Larijani was disqualified from running in the 2021 and 2024 Iranian presidential elections. But he was reappointed SNSC Secretary in August 2025 by President Masoud Pezeshkian.
After last year’s conflict with Israel, Larijani returned to prominence as head of the National Security Council and was regarded by many analysts as the most important decision-maker in the country.
Family Details - Kennedys of Iran Ali Ardashir Larijani was born on 3 June, 1958, in Najaf, Iraq, to a wealthy family from the Iranian city of Amol. He came from a dynasty so influential that in 2009, Time magazine described them as the “Kennedys of Iran,” Al Jazeera reported.
Larijani’s father, Mirza Hashem Amoli, was a prominent religious scholar. His brothers have held some of the most powerful positions in Iran, including in the judiciary and the Assembly of Experts, a scholarly council empowered to choose and oversee the supreme leader.
At 20, Larijani married Farideh Motahari, the daughter of Morteza Motahhari, a close confidant of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s founder, Ruhollah Khomeini.
Larijani’s daughter, Fatemeh, a medical graduate from the University of Tehran, completed her specialisation at Cleveland State University in Ohio, US.
Ali Larijani has four brothers holding senior positions across Iran’s judicial, legislative, and security institutions.
Islamic Education and Western Philosophy Larijani studied in a religious seminary in Qom and got a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran in 1979. Later, he completed master’s and doctorate degrees in Western philosophy from the University of Tehran, writing his thesis on Immanuel Kant.
According to a profile of Larijani on the University of Tehran website, he has published three books on Immanuel Kant (all in Farsi) — The Mathematical Method in Kant’s Philosophy, Metaphysics and the Exact Sciences in Kant’s Philosophy, and Intuition and Synthetic A Priori Judgments in Kant’s Philosophy.
Larijani has also written about Saul Kripke — the American philosopher of language and modal logic — and David Lewis, the analytical metaphysician.
What does his death mean? In the latest escalation, Larijani, who had accused US President Donald Trump of falling into an “Israeli trap”, was at the centre of the Iranian ruling system’s response to its biggest crisis since 1979.
He played an important role alongside the three-man transitional council running Iran after Khamenei’s killing. The 67-year-old held decades of experience in the military, legislative and cultural spheres.
“He had his fingers in a lot of different pots,” Barbara Slavin, an American journalist and fellow at the Stimson Centre who interviewed Larijani four times, told Middle East Eye.
In the months leading up to the war, Larijani had become even more important, at times effectively running the country's day-to-day strategy as pressure mounted, according to CBS news. As the war unfolded after the 28 February joint US-Israel strikes that killed the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Larijani had emerged as a defiant face and voice of the Islamic Republic.
The Security Council he leads is one of the most important institutions of the state, especially during wartime. As the Security Council's secretary, Larijani was the equivalent of India's National Security Adviser.
The high-profile killing is likely to intensify questions about the remaining leadership in Iran and the prospects for any sort of negotiated agreement to bring the war to a close.
He had his fingers in a lot of different pots.
The killing is the latest escalation in the conflict that’s brought retaliatory Iranian attacks on countries across the oil-rich Persian Gulf and sent shock waves through the global economy.
As someone who was considered a moderate conservative, Larijani’s absence now leaves powerful hardliners like Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s remaining ranking officers in charge of the Islamic Republic.
Larijani's death also leaves a vacuum at the top of Iran’s most important national security organisation, dealing a major blow to the leadership structure that’s been running the country and carrying out its war plans.