Ali Larijani: Iran power player who rose then fell on winds of war

When Israeli and US strikes killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the start of the Middle East war, Iran's security chief Ali Larijani briefly became even more powerful than he had been for decades.

Last June's 12-day Israeli air assault boosted the long-time insider's profile. And in January he was deeply implicated in the Islamic republic's brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.

During the first two weeks of the current war, Larijani played a far more visible role than Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since he was appointed to replace his slain father.

In a telling contrast, the security chief was seen walking with crowds at a pro-government rally last week in Tehran, a sign of defiance against Israel and the US.

But Larijani's return to prominence as a key figure seen in Tehran as capable of navigating both ideology and diplomacy seems now to have potentially come to a sudden end.

Israeli leaders said today that he had been killed. Iran has not addressed the matter yet.

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.

Such a revolt would not succeed overnight, as even Netanyahu conceded, but experts agree that Larijani was a key figure in the Islamic republic's battle for survival and the right-hand man of the late former supreme leader.

"Larijani has been the central player in maintaining the continuity of the Iranian government for several months, and in particular since June 2025," said David Khalfa, co-director of the Middle East Observatory at the Jean Jaures Foundation think tank.

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"He has effectively been the figure in charge of the regime's survival, its regional policy and its defence strategy. This assassination also sends a message to the Iranian population. Larijani played an absolutely central role in the repression in January."

Pragmatist

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.

This handout photo provided by the official website of the Center for Preserving and Publishing the Works of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on February 21, 2017 shows (L to R) Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and judiciary chief of judiciary Sadeq Larijani attending the sixth international conference in support of Palestinian intifada (uprising), in Tehran.PHOTO: AFP

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.

'Canny operator'

"Larijani is a true insider, a canny operator, familiar with how the system operates," Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group's project director for Iran, said before the Middle East war began.

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.

Some of his relatives have been the targets of corruption allegations, which they denied.

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.

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In 1996, he was appointed as Khamenei's representative to the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). He later became secretary of the SNSC and chief nuclear negotiator, leading talks with Britain, France, Germany and Russia between 2005 and 2007.

He ran in the 2005 presidential elections, losing to populist candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with whom he later had disagreements over nuclear diplomacy. Larijani was then disqualified from running for president in both 2021 and 2024.

Observers viewed his return as the head of the SNSC as reflecting his reputation for being a conservative capable of combining ideological commitment with pragmatism.

Larijani supported the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that unravelled three years later after President Donald Trump withdrew US support for the agreement.

Violent repression

In March 2025, Larijani warned that external pressure could force Iran to drop its promise not to develop nuclear weapons.

"We are not moving towards weapons, but if you do something wrong in the Iranian nuclear issue, you will force Iran to move towards that because it has to defend itself," he told state television.

Larijani repeatedly insisted negotiations with Washington should remain confined to nuclear policy, and he defended uranium enrichment as Iran's sovereign right.

Larijani was among the officials sanctioned by the US in January over what Washington described as "violently repressing the Iranian people" following nationwide protests that had erupted weeks earlier against the rising cost of living.

According to rights groups, thousands of people were killed in the government's brutal crackdown of the protests.