Who was Ali Larijani, Iran’s philosopher-security chief killed by Israel?

Ali Larijani, who emerged as one of the most powerful figures in Iran after the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been killed, according to state media.

The Iranian announcement, late on Tuesday, came hours after Israeli Minister of Defence Israel Katz said Larijani, 67, was killed in an overnight strike amid the US-Israel war on Iran.

Separately, Brigadier General Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force, was also killed in an attack, Iranian state media reported on Tuesday.

Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was last seen publicly on Friday, during the al-Quds Day parade in the capital, Tehran.

He is the highest-level Iranian official to be killed by Israel since Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war on February 28.

For decades, Larijani was the calm, pragmatic face of the Iranian establishment – a man who wrote books on the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant and negotiated nuclear deals with the West.

But on March 1, the security chief’s tone changed irrevocably.

Appearing on state television just 24 hours after the US-Israel air attacks killed Khamenei and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Mohammad Pakpour, Larijani delivered a fiery message.

“America and the Zionist regime [Israel] have set the heart of the Iranian nation ablaze,” he wrote on social media. “We will burn their hearts. We will make the Zionist criminals and the shameless Americans regret their actions.

“The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will deliver an unforgettable lesson to the hellish international oppressors,” he added.

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.

So, who was Larijani, who steered Iran’s security strategy, and what will be his legacy?

The ‘Kennedys of Iran’

Born on June 3, 1958, in Najaf, Iraq, to a wealthy family from the Iranian city of Amol, Larijani belonged to a dynasty so influential that in 2009, Time magazine described them as the “Kennedys of Iran”.

His father, Mirza Hashem Amoli, was a prominent religious scholar. And like Larijani, 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.

Larijani’s ties to Iran’s post-1979 revolutionary elite are also personal. At age 20, he married Farideh Motahari, the daughter of Morteza Motahhari, a close confidant of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s founder, Ruhollah Khomeini.

Despite his family’s conservative religious roots, his children have had a diverse trajectory. His daughter, Fatemeh, a medical graduate from the University of Tehran, completed her specialisation at Cleveland State University in Ohio, US.

The mathematician philosopher

Unlike many of his peers who came solely from religious seminaries, Larijani also had a secular academic background.

In 1979, he earned a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the Sharif University of Technology. He later completed master’s and doctorate degrees in Western philosophy from the University of Tehran, writing his thesis on Immanuel Kant.

But it is his political positions that have been the centrepiece of his career.

After the 1979 revolution, he joined the IRGC in the early 1980s, before transitioning to government, serving as culture minister under President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani between 1994 and 1997, and then as the head of the state broadcaster, IRIB, from 1994 to 2004. During his time at the IRIB, he faced criticism from reformists who accused his restrictive policies of driving Iranian youth towards foreign media.

Between 2008 and 2020, he served as the Parliament (Majlis) speaker for three consecutive terms, playing a major role in shaping domestic and foreign policy.

Return to the security fold

Larijani ran for the presidency in 2005 as a conservative candidate but did not make it to the second round. In the same year, he was appointed the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the country’s chief nuclear negotiator.

He resigned from those posts in 2007, after growing distant from then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s nuclear policies.

Larijani entered parliament in 2008, winning a seat to represent the religious centre of Qom, and became the speaker. This allowed him to grow in influence, and he maintained his connection to the nuclear file, securing parliamentary approval for the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

After leaving his position as speaker and member of parliament in 2020, Larijani attempted to run for president for a second time in the 2021 election. But this time, he was disqualified by the Guardian Council, which vets candidates. He was disqualified again when he attempted to run in the 2024 presidential election.

The Guardian Council gave no reason for the disqualifications, but analysts viewed the 2021 move as a way for the establishment to clear the field for hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, who won the election. Larijani criticised the 2024 disqualification as “non-transparent”.

But he did return to an influential position in August 2025, when he was reappointed as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council by President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Since taking the post, his stance has hardened. In October 2025, reports emerged that Larijani had cancelled a cooperation agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), declaring that the agency’s reports were “no longer effective”.

Diplomacy amid war

Despite that tough stance, Larijani was often regarded as pragmatic and someone inside the Iranian system who may be willing to compromise, in part due to his past role in backing the 2015 nuclear deal.

Just weeks before the current escalation, Larijani was reportedly engaged in indirect negotiations with the US.

In February, during talks mediated by Oman, he said that Tehran had not received a specific proposal from Washington, and accused Israel of trying to sabotage the diplomatic track to “ignite a war”.

In an interview with Al Jazeera before the US and Israel’s attacks on Iran, Larijani described his country’s position on the talks as “positive”, noting that the US had realised that the military option was not viable. “Resorting to negotiation is a rational path,” he said at the time.

However, the US-Israel attacks have shattered the diplomatic window.

In one of his addresses, Larijani assured the nation that plans were in place to arrange the leadership succession according to the Constitution. He warned the US that it was delusional to think killing leaders would destabilise Iran.

“We are not intending to attack regional countries”, he said, “but we are targeting any bases used by the United States”.

The more pragmatic tone seemed to have disappeared. Larijani rejected media reports that he wanted new talks with the US, saying Iran would “not negotiate” with Washington.

Instead, he rapidly escalated his rhetoric. On March 5, responding to Trump’s refusal to rule out deploying ground forces, Larijani pledged to capture and kill US troops if they entered the country. “The valiant sons of Imam Khomeini and Imam Khamenei are waiting for you, ready to disgrace those corrupt American officials by killing and capturing thousands,” he warned.

His defiance has moved beyond mere statements. On March 13, despite the ongoing US and Israeli bombardments on the capital, Larijani took to the streets of Tehran alongside Pezeshkian and thousands of demonstrators to mark al-Quds Day, projecting an image of resilience in the face of the assault.

In a letter posted on his X handle on Monday, Larijani rebuked Muslim countries for their silence on the war.

“If you do not respond to the cry of a Muslim, you are not a Muslim. What kind of Islam is this?” he wrote.

Last week, the US Department of State announced a reward of up to $10m for information on Larijani, alongside new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and other top officials, accusing them of directing global “terrorism”.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said the political elite saw Larijani as a bridge between the security apparatus, the military sphere and the political establishment.

He described his loss as “significant”, saying it would have implications for the country’s strategic decision-making.

“He played an important role in strategic decision-making after the killing of Khamenei,” Asadi said.

“Despite the blows to the Iranian political and military establishment, it continues to function, but finding an alternative to someone like Larijani is not going to be an easy task,” he added.

“He was one of the key figures in both controlling the war and maybe in reviving a hope of a possible de-escalation in this already highly delicate situation.”