The Israeli Air Force conducted a series of overnight strikes on Monday in Tehran, eliminating Supreme National Council secretary Ali Larijani, who had taken control of the Islamic Republic following the Feb. 28 elimination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, according to Israeli military assessments on Tuesday.
Detailing the actual concentration of power held by Larijani, a military official stated on Tuesday, “De facto, he was effectively the leader or the one who was calling the shots and directing the entire Iranian regime.”
The official added, “We can say even since [Operation] ‘Rising Lion’ in June [2025], and especially after Ali Khamenei was eliminated, he was the de facto leader of Iran.”
Larijani utilized his authority to personally orchestrate the multi-front war against Israel and Iran’s regional Gulf neighbors, the official said.
“He was the one instructing attacks against Israel. He was the one instructing attacks against Gulf states. He was the one directing the fire towards the entire region,” the military official confirmed.
The IDF also carried out a targeted strike against Akram al-Ajouri, deputy commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and an Iranian proxy.
“He is considered number two in the Islamic Jihad. He was spending time in Iran, living in Iran,” the official noted, adding that this serves as “yet another proof of the direct relationship between the terror we see from Gaza and other arenas to this Iranian terror regime.”
A formal battle damage assessment from that strike is still pending. Ajouri was directly involved in directing attacks against Jews all across Israel and specifically from Gaza. He was one of the instigators of fire attacks from Islamic Jihad from Gaza towards the communities in southern Israel, said the official.
Simultaneously, the Israeli military campaign had fundamentally degraded the regime’s ability to violently suppress its own civilian population through the targeted elimination of the commander of the Basij unit, Gholamreza Soleimani, according to the official, who confirmed the strike and the elimination.
The Basij leadership had entirely abandoned its military installations due to the persistent threat of Israeli intelligence and precision munitions, they added.
Soleimani was hit in “a makeshift headquarters that the Basij used, out of fear of using the regular bases,” the source added. “The Basij forces serve as the primary instrument of domestic terror for the IRGC, heavily utilized by the regime to crush internal dissent. It played a major role in the massacre of unarmed Iranian protesters in January. “
The Israel Defense Forces views the Basij as also being a core component of the broader Iranian military apparatus.
“They are part of the IRGC and they are part of our campaign to weaken the Iranian security establishment,” the official stated. “While we are operating to remove existential threats, we’re also operating to make sure that this operation has a significant, long-lasting effect on the entire Iranian security establishment.”
In an official statement, the IDF said that the elimination of Soleimani “adds to that of dozens of senior commanders from the armed forces of the Iranian regime,” and constitutes an “additional significant blow to the regime’s security command-and-control structures.”
The official added, “This is a significant blow to the regime’s capabilities. It is a significant blow to their ability to operate their war machine against Israel and their own people and we will continue pushing to degrade the Iranians regime’s capabilities.”
