After Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, Larijani “functioned” as the de facto leader of the Iranian regime, the IDF said.
According to the statement, Larijani was the target of a “precise strike” while he was “located near Tehran.”
IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee described Larijani as “one of the oldest and most prominent figures at the top of the pyramid of the Iranian terrorism regime” and said his death “constitutes a further blow to the Iranian regime’s abilities to manage and coordinate hostile activity against the State of Israel.”
The Israeli military also reported the killing of Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Basij force—a plain-clothes militia unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
“Yesterday, the IDF targeted and eliminated Gholamreza Soleimani, who operated as commander of the Basij unit for the past six years,” read a statement from the IDF. “Under Soleimani, the Basij unit led the main repression operations in Iran, employing severe violence, widespread arrests, and the use of force against civilian demonstrators.”