Iran's security chief Ali Larijani has been killed, Iranian media confirmed on Tuesday (March 17), Reuters reports.
Veteran Iranian politician Ali Larijani was one of the most powerful figures in the Islamic Republic, an architect of its security policy, and a close adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei until the supreme leader's death in an airstrike last month.
He has been killed at the age of 67, Iranian media said on Tuesday (March 17). Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said earlier on Tuesday that he had been killed in an Israeli strike.
The scion of a leading clerical family with brothers who rose to high positions after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Larijani was seen as canny and pragmatic but always fiercely determined to uphold Iran's theocratic system of government.
A Revolutionary Guards commander during the Iran-Iraq war, he became head of Iran's national broadcaster before stints running the Supreme National Security Council either side of his membership of parliament, where he was speaker for 12 years.
His role as the ultimate insider in Khamenei's Iran gave him responsibilities across a wide portfolio that included critical nuclear negotiations with the West, managing Tehran's regional ties and the suppression of internal unrest.
Despite his unswerving commitment to Khamenei's absolute rule, he advocated a more cautionary approach than did other hardline figures, sometimes willing to further Iran's goals through diplomacy and to meet domestic opposition with soothing words.
But despite his relative moderation, he played an allegedly central role in the bloody crushing of mass protests in January. The violent repression, which killed thousands of protesters, led Washington to impose sanctions on him last month.
