Iran vows revenge as intel chief assassinated

Supreme leader says 'murderers' must pay for killing Larijani; US finds Tehran not rebuilding nuclear enrichment

WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM/TEHRAN:

Israel killed another top Iranian official, intelligence minister Esmail Khatib, and declared on Wednesday that its military is authorised to kill any senior Islamic republic figure it gets in its sights as new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said in a written message that the killers of security chief Ali Larijani, who died in an Israeli strike, "will have to pay for it".

Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian branded Khatib's death a "cowardly assassination".

"Without a doubt, the assassination of such a figure attests to his importance and to the hatred that the enemies of Islam harbour toward him," Mojtaba Khamenei said, in a message published on his official Telegram channel on the day of Larijani's funeral in Tehran.

"Every drop of spilled blood comes at a price, and the criminal murderers of these martyrs will soon have to pay it," added Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to appear in public after taking office following the killing of his father, ex-supreme leader Ali Khamenei at the start of the war.

The war erupted on February 28 when US and Israeli forces attacked Iran, killing supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and has since been marked by several high-profile killings.

News of Khatib's death came the day after Iranian security chief Ali Larijani was confirmed killed in an Israeli strike.

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have authorised the IDF to eliminate any senior Iranian official for whom the intelligence and operational circle has been closed, without the need for additional approval," Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz announced

"We will continue to thwart them and to hunt them all down."

Israel has also vowed to hunt down Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since he succeeded his father.

Large crowds gathered in central Tehran for the funerals of Larijani and Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij paramilitary force who was also killed in a strike in Iran this week, according to images broadcast by Iranian state television.

They were held alongside the funerals of more than 80 Iranian sailors killed in a US torpedoing of their frigate off Sri Lanka earlier this month.

Trucks carrying coffins draped in Iranian flags moved through the procession, as mourners walked alongside carrying portraits of the slain supreme leader and beating their chests, a sign of mourning in Shia culture.

In contrast to Mojtaba Khamenei, Larijani, 68, had walked openly with crowds at a pro-government rally last week in Tehran.

He had "effectively been the figure in charge of the regime's survival, its regional policy and its defence strategy," David Khalfa, co-founder of the Atlantic Middle East Forum, told AFP.

US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard to a senate hearing that Washington "assesses the regime in Iran to be intact but largely degraded due to attacks on its leadership and military capabilities".

The Guards, the ideological arm of the military, said they had launched missiles at central Israel in retaliation for Larijani's death and warned of more to come.

The "pure blood of this great martyr... will be a source of honour, power and national awakening against the front of global arrogance," they said.

An Iranian missile barrage killed two people near Israel's commercial hub of Tel Aviv, medics said on Wednesday, while authorities said falling munitions hit multiple sites in central Israel overnight.

Police said a cluster bomb hit a residential building in Ramat Gan, a city just outside Tel Aviv, and the roof collapsed on an elderly couple.

Iranian media meanwhile said Israel and the United States had launched fresh strikes across several areas of the country, including Tehran.

Tasnim news agency said "seven people were killed and 56 were injured in an American-Zionist attack on residential areas in Dorud town" in Lorestan province.

Tulsi Gabbard

US intelligence concluded that Iran was not rebuilding nuclear enrichment capacities destroyed last year by the United States and Israel, contradicting a key justification by President Donald Trump for his ongoing war.

Tulsi Gabbard, a Trump ally who is director of national intelligence, offered mixed signals on the backdrop and outcomes of three weeks of war as she and other officials appeared before Congress

She also assessed that Iran's leadership remained intact.

"As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated," Gabbard said in prepared testimony to the Senate intelligence committee, referring to the June 2025 US attack.

"There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability," Gabbard wrote.

She did not repeat the conclusion before cameras. Pressed by a Democratic senator, Gabbard said that she did not have enough time to read the full testimony at the hearing but did not refute the assessment.

Gabbard herself had been an outspoken opponent of war with Iran as a Democratic congresswoman.

One of her senior aides, Joseph Kent, resigned in protest Tuesday as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, saying that Iran posed no "imminent threat" and that Trump was misled by Israel and media outlets.

Democrats attacked Gabbard over the war, saying she had not proven that Iran posed any threat beyond what it has since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"President Trump said, we are not the policemen of the world. He ran on that," Democratic Senator Michael Bennet said.

"Now he's turned us into the world's policeman, into its jury, into its judge, into its executioner," he said.

In her remarks to senators, Gabbard said Iran had been suffering heavy blows in the weeks of attacks—which included the killing of the longtime supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—but that the Islamic republic was still functioning.

The US intelligence community "assesses the regime in Iran to be intact but largely degraded due to attacks on its leadership and military capabilities," Gabbard said.

"If a hostile regime survives, it will likely seek to begin a years-long effort to rebuild its military, missiles and UAV forces," Gabbard said, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones.

In other findings, Gabbard predicted that Russia would keep pressing its four-year invasion of Ukraine, a war that Trump had vowed to end upon taking office, largely by pressing Kyiv to compromise.

US intelligence "assesses that Russia has maintained the upper hand in the war against Ukraine," Gabbard said.

"US-led negotiations between Moscow and Kiev are ongoing. Until such an agreement is met, Moscow is likely to continue fighting a slow war," she said.

Gabbard said the United States faced a threat if there were an "escalatory spiral" in Ukraine or elsewhere, which could potentially lead to the use of nuclear weapons.

She said that China was "rapidly" modernizing its military with a goal of being able to seize Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing.

However, US intelligence "assesses that China likely prefers to set the conditions for an eventual peaceful reunification with Taiwan short of conflict."

Trump plans to travel in the coming weeks to China, a trip he delayed due to the war in the Mideast.

Saudi gas plant

Saudi Arabia said it destroyed a drone headed towards a gas plant on Wednesday, as Iran threatened to attack Gulf energy infrastructure in retaliation for a US-Israeli strike on its own facilities.

"A drone attempting to approach a gas factory in the Eastern Province was intercepted and destroyed; the interception and destruction operation resulted in no damage," the Saudi defence ministry said.

Ben Gurion airport

The Israeli military told AFP on Wednesday that "debris" had hit Ben Gurion international airport following Iranian missile fire, without specifying when the incident had occurred.

Israeli media reported that private planes parked at the airport near Tel Aviv had sustained damage. The army lifted the censorship order regarding the incident on Wednesday but did not authorise the disclosure of the date.

Israeli news site Ynet published a photo appearing to show the charred and damaged interior of a small private plane.

It is the first time the army has announced that Ben Gurion—Israel's main international airport—has been hit since the start of the Middle East war, triggered by the US-Israeli attacks against Iran launched on February 28.

On March 5, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted Ben Gurion airport and an air force base in the area.

Missile or interceptor debris has fallen in areas near the airport several times since the start of the war.

Flag carrier El Al said on Wednesday it was suspending round-trip flights to nearly 30 destinations including Barcelona, Berlin and Budapest from March 22 until March 28.

It said this was "in line with the reduced operational framework and current limitations".

Israel had closed its airspace on the first day of the war, with El Al and other Israeli airlines subsequently resuming some of their flights under strict security conditions.

Israel's transport ministry on Monday announced it wanted to increase the number of passengers allowed to travel from Ben Gurion, depending on security guidelines.