Israel eliminated Iran’s de facto leader, Supreme National Security Council chief Ali Larijani, and the head of the country’s feared Basij paramilitary police, Gholamreza Soleimani in a wave of airstrikes carried out overnight Monday night.
Dozens of Israeli Air Force warplanes attacked Iranian intelligence centers and command headquarters in the strikes, which also eliminated Soleimani’s deputy, and Islamic Jihad’s Number Two, Akram al-Ajouri.
“The completed strikes are part of an ongoing effort focused on deepening the damage to the Iranian terror regime’s core systems and weakening its capacity to threaten the State of Israel,” the IDF noted.
Rumors swirling today say that as Iran’s political order fractures from within, President Masoud Pezeshkian is said to be weighing resignation, a move that would effectively surrender what remains of the civilian government to the Revolutionary Guards.
Sources close to the Iranian presidency say Pezeshkian has spoken privately of “handing over the keys,” a stark euphemism for stepping down, amid mounting evidence that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps engineered or permitted the death of Ali Larijani, a senior statesman seen as a potential post-Khamenei power broker and a figure to whom Pezeshkian was personally close.
AFSI’s take:
In spite of this latest significant takedown of Iran’s two top leaders, the total collapse of the regime has not yet happened. If Pezeshkian voluntarily steps down that’s a blow to the regime too. Nevertheless, the continuous removal of high-ranking political and security officials may exacerbate divisions within Iran’s leadership and its overall military framework, consequently increasing the chances of wider destabilization.
Iran’s Pezeshkian Weighs Resignation Amid IRGC Conspiracy Theories, by Jfeed Staff, March 18, 2026