Iranian President confirms assassination of Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib
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The news: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian confirmed that the country’s Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib has been killed, marking the latest high-profile assassination across the Iranian regime since the war began.
The context: The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Khatib was killed in a Tuesday airstrike on Tehran, stating that Khatib played a significant role in the arrest and killing of Iranian protesters in January and was instrumental in shaping the regime’s intelligence assessment.
Pezeshkian wrote via X on Wednesday: “The cowardly assassination of my dear colleagues Esmaeil Khatib, Ali Larijani, and Aziz Nasirzadeh, alongside some of their family members and accompanying team, has left us in deep mourning.”
Israel claimed that both Ali Larijani, chief of the security for the Iranian regime and Gholamreza Soleimani, who operated as commander of the Basij unit for the past 6 years, were killed in airstrikes carried out on Monday night.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that Israel would hunt down all of Iran’s leadership and said that “significant surprises” that will escalate the war are expected today.
The sources: Iranian President X, IDF X, Axios, NYT
