Iran War Live Updates: Top Iranian Official Ali Larijani Is Believed Killed, Israel Says

The Iranian authorities and state media did not comment on the Israeli announcements. But two Iranian officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, said they believed Mr. Larijani and Mr. Soleimani had been killed.

Mr. Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was a close confidant of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late February. Mr. Larijani in effect ran Iran behind the scenes after Ayatollah Khamenei’s death, emerging as a prominent voice of Iranian defiance against the United States and Israel, though he was also seen as a pragmatist who could negotiate with the United States in any talk to end the war.

Mr. Soleimani, the head of the Basij, had led the force since 2019 and was under U.S. and European sanctions for his role in the violent suppression of protests. The Basij, estimated to number at about one million, are affiliated with Iran’s most powerful military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and have played a central role in repressing dissent.

Iran pressed on with retaliatory attacks Tuesday on energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf, sending the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, to nearly $104 a barrel. It has increased nearly 40 percent since the war began.

A tanker anchored near a port in the United Arab Emirates was hit by a projectile early Tuesday, the first strike on a ship in and around the Strait of Hormuz in five days. The tanker sustained minor damage after it was hit near the port of Fujairah, at the southern end of the strait, according to United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a monitoring agency.

Iran has said that it will not allow oil shipments that benefit the United States and its allies to pass through the strait, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil output normally flows. At least 17 vessels have been attacked in the region since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran began.

On Monday, President Trump disparaged U.S. allies who have declined to send warships to escort merchant ships and oil tankers through the strait. Germany, Japan, Italy, Australia and the European Union have said they would not participate in the U.S. effort to reopen the strait, while France, South Korea and Britain have been noncommittal.

Here’s what else we are covering:

• U.S.-China relations: China’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Beijing was “maintaining communication” with Washington about Mr. Trump’s visit to China, after he requested a postponement. On Sunday, Mr. Trump threatened to delay the meeting if China did not send its navy to help protect oil tankers in the Gulf. Read more ›

• Lebanon evacuations: The Israeli military again urged residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate north of the Zahrani River, saying it was attacking Hezbollah militants in that region. A day earlier, Israel’s defense minister had announced a “ground maneuver” in southern Lebanon, defying concerns over the consequences for civilians. More than a million people have fled their homes, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

• Death toll: At least 1,348 civilians in Iran have been killed since the start of the war, Iran’s U.N. representative told the Security Council last Wednesday, the latest figure the country has provided. In Lebanon, officials said that 886 people had been killed. In Israel, at least 12 people have been killed, according to the authorities. The Pentagon has said that 13 American service members have died since the start of the war.

• Iraq: The Iraqi Interior Ministry said that a drone hit Al Rasheed Hotel late Monday, inside the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad that houses government buildings and the U.S. embassy. No injuries or significant damage were reported. The embassy and the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

There has been no official comment so far from Iran on Israel’s claim that Mr. Larijani was killed.

A trusted confidant of Ayatollah Khamenei, Mr. Larijani was among a group of officials whom the supreme leader tasked with devising a plan to ensure the Islamic Republic would survive if he were assassinated, according to senior Iranian officials and members of the royal guards.

The scion of an elite political and religious family, Mr. Larijani served for 12 years as the speaker of Parliament. In 2021, he was tasked with negotiating a 25-year comprehensive strategic deal with China that was worth billions and delivered an essential lifeline for an Iranian economy battered by Western economic sanctions.

Before the U.S.-Israeli assault began last month, Mr. Larijani’s portfolio grew. He was in charge of putting down recent protests that demanded the end of Islamic rule, deploying lethal force to crush the demonstrations. He kept a lid on dissent and was the key liaison with Iran’s allies including Russia, as well as regional actors like Qatar and Oman.

He also oversaw nuclear negotiations with Washington, and had devised plans for managing Iran during a potential war with the United States.

Mr. Larijani often acted as the public face of the Iranian government, sitting for television interviews with Iranian and foreign news outlets. His social media presence includes selfies with other Iranians, visiting a shrine and waving from the door of an airplane.

Mr. Larijani’s rise partly sidelined Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, a doctor who was seen as a moderate figure within the Iranian leadership. Mr. Pezeshkian appeared resigned to deferring authority to him, telling a cabinet meeting that he had suggested to Mr. Larijani that internet restrictions should be lifted because they were harming e-commerce, Iranian media reported. The admission that the president needed Mr. Larijani’s authorization to get things done was a sign of his power.

Even though Mr. Larijani was one of Ayatollah Khamenei’s closest advisers, he was not a likely candidate to succeed him as supreme leader because he was not a senior Shiite cleric — a fundamental qualification for any successor. In the end, Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the slain supreme leader, assumed the role.

On Tuesday, after reports that Israel had targeted Mr. Larijani, his X account published an image of a handwritten statement in honor of Iranian sailors who had been killed in a U.S. attack. It was not clear when the statement had been written, who wrote it or why it was published at that time.

At least 17 vessels have been attacked in the region since U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran began in late February.

The United Arab Emirates’ air defenses were intercepting missile and drone threats from Iran throughout Tuesday morning, the country’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. In Abu Dhabi, the capital, a person from Pakistan was killed by falling shrapnel from a missile interception, the city’s authorities said on Tuesday morning.

Fujairah and Abu Dhabi are at two ends of an oil pipeline that circumvents the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil usually passes. The International Energy Agency recently estimated that more than a quarter of the oil typically exported through the strait in the form of either crude or fuels like diesel was still able to get out thanks to the pipeline.

But Iran has targeted facilities on both ends, and has said that it would not allow oil shipments that benefit the United States and its allies to pass through the strait.

The city of Fujairah said on social media early Tuesday that a drone attack had caused a fire at the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, which includes one of the world’s largest oil storage and export terminals. It said that no injuries had been reported and did not specify the source of the attack.

The loading berths at Fujairah’s oil tanker terminal were halted as of Tuesday morning, according to a notice by Inchcape Shipping Services, a multinational port agency that operates there.

The Emirati authorities also closed the country’s airspace for hours as an “exceptional precautionary measure” early Tuesday, the state news agency, WAM, reported. The closure halted all flights over the country, including those at Dubai International Airport, one of the busiest in the world. Air traffic resumed later in the morning, the news agency reported.

Speaking at the White House on Monday, Mr. Trump said he needed to stay in the United States instead of making a planned trip to Beijing. He said he requested a delay of “a month or so.”

“We’ve got a war going on. I think it’s important that I be here,” Mr. Trump said.

Trump administration officials met in Paris on Sunday with their Chinese counterparts for two days of discussions to lay the groundwork for a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi. The leaders were expected to extend a yearlong trade truce that was agreed upon at a meeting in October.

But Mr. Trump himself had cast doubts on his planned trip. He had threatened to call off his visit if China failed to contribute warships to help escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which as much as one fifth of the world’s oil passes. Mr. Trump has called on other countries to help reopen the strait, which has been effectively choked off by fighting between Israel, the United States and Iran.

The delay complicates what China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, has described as a “big year for China-U.S. relations.” Speaking at a news briefing after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, Mr. Wang indicated that a series of planned “high-level” exchanges would not be derailed by U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, a strategic partner to Beijing.

Postponing the meeting was interpreted in China as an indication that Mr. Trump was facing growing concern that the war was having a negative impact on domestic politics and the economy, said Wu Xinbo, the dean at the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. It would also give Beijing some space to manage its relationship with Iran, he said.

“From the Chinese perspective, it’s better to receive Trump after the war on Iran is over,” said Professor Wu. “While the U.S. is fighting Iran, for us to roll out the red carpet for Donald Trump puts China in an awkward position because Iran is China’s partner.”

Mr. Lin of the Foreign Ministry also said on Tuesday that China would provide emergency humanitarian assistance to Iran, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.

Murphy Zhao contributed reporting from Hong Kong.

“He said, ‘I wish I did what you did,’” Mr. Trump said. “I don’t want to get into ‘who,’ I don’t want to get him into trouble.”

A reporter asked if it was President George W. Bush, the only Republican on the list, but Mr. Trump said no.

That would leave Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., all Democrats. But people close to all three men denied the former presidents had said that to Mr. Trump, or spoken with him at all recently. They all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly confirm the former presidents’ private business.

In his claim, Mr. Trump strongly suggested he was talking about a Democrat, saying the person was “a member of a party” that detests him. He said the former president was one who “happens to like me, and I like that person, who is a smart person.”

Mr. Trump has for years mocked all three former Democratic presidents and their accomplishments in speeches, social media posts and even in a monument to American presidents that Mr. Trump had installed near the Oval Office last year.

Mr. Trump’s claim of support from a former president came even as he conceded on Monday that he had been “shocked” by Iran’s retaliatory strikes in the war, which targeted U.S.-allied states like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. He added that “there was no expert that would say that was going to happen” and equated the war to “a big chess game at a very high level — very high-level chess, the highest.”

He continued, “I’m dealing with very smart players.” He added: “These are really smart people and violent people and vicious people. And some very nice people. And some are very nice but violent; they turned violent.”