TEHRAN: Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani has embraced martyrdom, Iranian media confirmed on Tuesday.

Israeli leaders had said earlier today that he had been killed.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on television to announce the death, and to argue that Larijani’s downfall could give the Iranian people an opening to rise up and overthrow their clerical rulers.

Adept at balancing ideological loyalty with pragmatic statecraft, Larijani led Iran’s nuclear policy and strategic diplomacy.

Bespectacled and known for his measured tone, the 68-year-old was believed to enjoy the confidence of the late Khamenei after a long career in the military, media and legislature.

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In June 2025, after Iran’s war with Israel and the US, he was appointed head of Iran’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council, a position he had held nearly two decades earlier, coordinating defence strategies and overseeing nuclear policy.

He later became increasingly visible in the diplomatic arena, travelling to Gulf states such as Oman and Qatar as Tehran cautiously engaged in negotiations that were ultimately scuppered by the war.

Born in Najaf, Iraq in 1957 to a prominent Shia cleric who was close to the Islamic republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Larijani’s family has been influential within Iran’s political system for decades.

He earned a PhD in Western philosophy from the University of Tehran.

A veteran of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the Iran-Iraq war, Larijani later headed state broadcaster IRIB for a decade from 1994 before serving as parliamentary speaker from 2008 to 2020.