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Veteran Iranian politician Ali Larijani was one of the most powerful figures in the Islamic republic, an architect of its security policy, and a close adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei until the supreme leader’s assassination in an airstrike last month.

Larijani, 67, was assassinated by a US-Israeli air attack as he was visiting his daughter in the eastern outskirts of a Tehran suburb, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said on Tuesday.

The scion of a leading clerical family with brothers who ​rose to high positions after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Larijani was seen as canny and pragmatic but always fiercely determined to uphold Iran’s theocratic system of government.

A Revolutionary Guard Corps commander during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, he became head of Iran’s ‌national broadcaster before stints running the Supreme National Security Council either side of his membership of parliament, where he was speaker for 12 years.

His role as the ultimate insider in Ali Khamenei’s Iran gave him responsibilities across a wide portfolio that included critical nuclear negotiations with the West, managing Tehran’s regional ties and the suppression of internal unrest.

Despite his unswerving commitment to Khamenei’s absolute rule, he advocated a more cautionary approach than did other hardline figures, sometimes willing to further Iran’s goals through diplomacy and to meet domestic opposition with soothing words.

But despite his relative moderation, he played an allegedly central role in the crushing of mass protests in January. The violent repression, which killed several of protesters, led Washington to impose sanctions ​on him last month.

After the US-Israeli strikes began on February 28, he was one of the first major Iranian figures to speak, accusing Iran’s attackers of seeking to disintegrate and plunder the country. He also issued stern warnings against any would-be protesters.

He had also helped design Iran’s nuclear policy. In pursuing that policy, he projected the voice of the supreme leader, using his abilities ⁠as a communicator to build a rapport with Western negotiators and lay out Khamenei’s vision in frequent television interviews.

Rise after revolution

Ali Larijani was born in 1958 in Iraq’s great shrine city of Najaf, the home of many major Iranian clerics like his father who had fled what they saw as the oppressive rule of the shah.

He moved to Iran as a child, later focusing on ​his studies and earning a philosophy PhD. But the clerical milieu of his family would have made him keenly aware of the revolutionary religious currents surging through his homeland in the 1970s.

When Larijani was 20 years old, the Islamic Revolution overthrew the shah and installed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader.

When Iraq invaded Iran along a 500-mile front months after the revolution, Larijani joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a new, ideologically driven, military unit devoted to Khomeini.

As the war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq became the great crucible testing the mettle of a new generation of Iranian leaders, Larijani rose up to become a staff officer, a commander focused on the organisational duties behind the front that dictated the war effort.

His ​success in that role, alongside his family connections, helped spur his rise in the new Islamic republic. They also ensured his close ties to the Guards, a military institution whose importance would continue growing throughout his life.

After the war, Larijani became culture minister and then head of Iran’s state broadcaster, IRIB, a ​critical role in a country where ideological messaging has always been central to the exercise of internal power.

Larijani was appointed to the cabinet by the mercurial president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in office from 1989 to 1997. Khamenei, meanwhile, became supreme leader in 1989, upon the death of Khomeini.

Larijani would have a ringside seat for the years-long power ‌struggle between Rafsanjani ⁠and Khamenei, an unrivalled lesson in high Iranian politics.

His time at IRIB was followed by a stint as head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s top foreign and security policy body. A failed presidential bid followed, in 2005, before his election to parliament two years later.

Two of his brothers were enjoying high office, too, the signs of a family on the make.

His eldest brother, Mohammad-Javad, was a member of parliament before becoming a senior adviser to Khamenei. A younger brother, Sadiq, had become a cleric and risen to head the judiciary.

Chief nuclear negotiator

As chief nuclear negotiator from 2005 to 2007, Larijani was responsible for defending what Tehran says is its right to enrich uranium, a process required to make fuel for a nuclear power plant but which can also yield material for a warhead.

Pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme had ratcheted up after the discovery in 2003 that the country had enrichment facilities it had not disclosed to international inspectors, prompting ​fears it was seeking a bomb and leading to sanctions.

It has always ​denied wanting a bomb.

Larijani likened European incentives to abandon nuclear fuel production ⁠to “exchanging a pearl for a candy bar”. Though he was widely regarded as a pragmatist, he said that Iran’s nuclear programme “can never be destroyed”.

“Because once you have discovered a technology, they can’t take the discovery away,” he told PBS’s Frontline programme in September 2025. “It’s as if you are the inventor of some machine, and the machine is stolen from you. You can still make it again.”

Larijani made repeated visits to Moscow and met President Vladimir Putin, helping Khamenei manage a key ​ally and world power that acted as a counterweight to pressure from the first and second administrations of US President Donald Trump.

He was also tasked with advancing negotiations with China, which led to a 25-year cooperation agreement ​in 2021.

As parliament speaker from 2008 to 2020, ⁠he had a role in ensuring that a nuclear deal with six world powers in 2015 would meet the requirements of sceptical Iranian hardliners. Trump withdrew the US from the hard-negotiated agreement during his first term, in 2018.

Role in crushing protests

Larijani was again appointed head of the Supreme National Security Council last year, after a 12-day air war launched by Israel.

He was working to avert an attack on Iran until shortly before the war began.

“In my view, this issue is resolvable,” Larijani told Oman state television early this year, referring to the talks with the US “If the Americans’ concern is that Iran should not move toward acquiring a nuclear weapon, that can be ⁠addressed.”

But Washington also denounced ​him for the council’s role in crushing mass protests in January, even after he and other senior politicians had initially said that demonstrations over the economy were permissible.

According to a US ​government announcement detailing sanctions against him and other officials in response to the crackdown, Larijani was at the forefront of the repression.

“Larijani was one of the first Iranian leaders to call for violence in response to the legitimate demands of the Iranian people,” a US Treasury statement claimed on January 15, saying he had acted at Khamenei’s behest.

One of Larijani’s daughters, meanwhile, was dismissed from a medical teaching position at Emory University, in the US, following protests by Iranian-American activists angered by his role suppressing the demonstrations.

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Header image: Ali Larijani speaks at a press conference after registering as a candidate for the presidential election at the Interior Ministry, in Tehran, Iran May 31, 2024. — Reuters/ File

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US President Donald Trump lashed out Tuesday at “foolish” Nato over Iran, saying the United States needs no help after allies rebuffed his calls to join efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump said most US allies had rejected his push to escort ships through the crucial waterway, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying his country would “never” do so until the situation was calmer.

“I think Nato is making a very foolish mistake,” Trump told reporters as he hosted Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin in the Oval Office.

“I’ve long said that I wonder whether or not Nato would ever be there for us. So this was a great test.”

But Trump insisted that Washington was ready to go it alone against Iran, saying that even Nato allies had agreed that Tehran needed to be confronted over its nuclear programme.

“We don’t need too much help. We don’t need any help,” Trump said.

Minutes before the meeting, Trump made a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform saying US forces “no longer need” military help in the Iran war.

Trump said that “most” Nato allies had said they did not want to get involved, along with Japan, Australia and South Korea, describing the decades-old military alliance as a “one-way street.”

“Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID!” he said.

The 79-year-old Republican has long criticised Nato, and since returning to power in January 2025 he has pushed its members into increasing their defence spending.

Asked if he would reconsider the US relationship with Nato as he has suggested in the past, Trump said it was “certainly something that we should think about” but added: “I have nothing currently in mind.”

‘Big mistake’

But he repeated his criticisms of foreign counterparts over the issue, saying British Prime Minister Keir Starmer “hasn’t been supportive, and I think it’s a big mistake.” Of Macron, he merely said that “he’ll be out of office soon.”

The US leader had suggested on Monday that both Paris and London would be ready to help, and said other countries he did not name were already on board.

But Macron insisted on Tuesday that France would not participate in operations to open the strait in the current context, but once the situation becomes “calmer” it could participate in an “escort system” alongside other nations.

Britain has also waved off Washington’s request for assistance.

Trump, meanwhile, kept up his mixed messaging about the length and goals of the US-Israeli war on Iran, which has expanded dramatically across the Middle East and caused global oil prices to surge.

He said that Iran’s “actual top leader was killed yesterday,” in an apparent reference to Israel’s claim that it had assassinated powerful national security chief Ali Larijani.

Iran was “just a military operation to me” and “we’ll be leaving in pretty much the very near future,” Trump said, but he remained vague about his political plan for the country after the war.

“We’re going to try to get people that are going to run it well,” he said.

US-Israeli strikes on February 28 assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the republic’s long-serving supreme leader, and Iran has named his son Mojtaba Khamenei to replace him.

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The Pakistan International Airlines said in a post on X on Tuesday night that its flight PK178, which was travelling from Fujerah in the United Arab Emirates to Lahore, had landed in Karachi due to a “snag”.

“PIA flight 178 (Fujerah-Lahore) is safe and sound and has landed at Karachi. During the flight, it developed a cabin pressure-related snag, and as per procedure, it reduced altitude to 10,000 feet,” the post said.

PIA said “our team of engineers are working diligently to remove the fault, and the flight will be dispatched to its original destination, i.e., Lahore, shortly”.

The ongoing war in the Middle East, which began with the US and Israel launching attacks on Iran on February 28, has sent the global aviation industry into a tailspin, forcing the widespread cancellation of flights after the closure of key Middle Eastern hubs and triggering a surge in airfares as jet fuel prices skyrocket.

Tens of thousands of passengers have been stranded after hubs in Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi were shut down, while the price of jet fuel has doubled in recent days to between $150 and $200 per barrel, upending airline finances.

Meanwhile, several airlines have either cancelled flights or are operating a reduced flight schedule.

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A rebuttal by the Senate Secretariat on reports of the purchase of a luxury vehicle for Senate Chairperson Yousaf Raza Gilani further confused the matter on Monday, essentially confirming the purchase and reiterating the details reported in this connection.

The rebuttal was issued after it was reported that a vehicle worth Rs90 million was bought for Gilani from the Senate’s budget. The reports also quoted Gilani as explaining that the car was ordered in May last year, “using savings from the Senate’s budget of the previous year”.

These details were also confirmed in the Senate’s rebuttal, which, however, did not mention the cost of the car.

The rebuttal said: “The attention of the Senate Secretariat has been drawn to certain media reports regarding the purchase of a vehicle (Land Cruiser) for the honourable Senate chairman.”

“These reports are misleading, factually incorrect, and appear to be based on incomplete information and mala fide intentions,” it said, without specifying which information was incorrect.

The rebuttal confirmed that the vehicle was purchased in May 2025, during the financial year 2024-2025, adding that it was bought through a “transparent procurement process as part of an overall vehicle replacement plan”.

“The purchase included replacement of vehicles allocated to the standing committees chairperson, Senate deputy chairman, leader of the House, the leader of the opposition and the Senate Secretariat,” it added.

The rebuttal also confirmed that the “vehicle has been delivered in March 2026, whereas the payment was made from the previous year’s budget savings in May 2025”.

It added, “The Senate Secretariat categorically rejects these baseless insinuations and urges media organisations to exercise due diligence and professional responsibility in reporting matters related to state institutions.”

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As gravediggers prepared new burial plots for those killed in the US-Israeli attack on Iran, Marzia Razaei wept for her son Arfan Shamei, who died in a blast at a military training camp days before he was due home on leave.

The war that began on February 28 with a blitz of air strikes on Tehran and other cities has killed more than 1,300 Iranians so far, according to Iranian officials, and plunged the Middle East into crisis.

Tears streamed down Razaei’s face and she stared vacantly, hugging a large portrait of Shamei, 23, her voice breaking with grief as she recalled her last conversation with him when they discussed his coming trip back home to his family.

“I hadn’t seen him for two months,” she said, adding that his last day before heading home was meant to have been Monday, the day Reuters met her.

He was to have been married soon afterwards and the trip home was part of the preparations for the wedding.

Shamei was killed in a blast at his training camp in Kermanshah in western Iran on March 4 that turned his tent into a ball of flame and left his body so charred that Razaei was not able to see it.

“My son used to be scared of the dark,” she said, sitting in front of his grave in the massive Behesht-e Zahra cemetery that sprawls across a large area just south of Tehran, the rain drizzling steadily around her.

Families’ grief and anger

Shamei and others killed in the current conflict are buried in Section 42 of the cemetery, where a dozen gravediggers were busy on Monday preparing for burials while workers readied white marble stones engraved with the names of the deceased.

As another body was brought in for burial, the bier carried on the shoulders of family members, the sound of an air strike echoed across the cemetery, grey smoke rising up from a nearby district.

Graves lay under a canopy decorated with pictures of the dead and Iranian flags, as families gathered, crying and talking. Women sat by the graves, some quietly weeping, others so distraught they were beating their chests with their fists.

A truck stood nearby, loaded with colourful flowers, and petals had been strewn across the graves as loudspeakers played Shi’ite Muslim hymns of mourning.

Other graves in the section contained members of the Basij, a volunteer militia group affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, and officials and detainees from Evin Prison, which was targeted in the current war and in strikes in June last year.

Fatima Darbechi, 58, had lost her 44-year-old brother early in the war as he tried to rescue people trapped in a bombed car when another blast sprayed him with shrapnel, leaving him mortally injured.

Their parents had died when he was a small child. “He grew up without a mother. I raised him,” she said, tears coursing down her cheeks.

For some of the mourners, the sorrow was matched by anger and defiance at Israel and the United States for their bombing campaign.

“When you burn our hearts, you do not stop us, you do not bring us to our knees,” said the mother of 25-year-old Ihsan Jangravi, pumping her fist in the air.

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WASHINGTON: The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution extending the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) for three months, with all 15 members — including Pakistan — voting in favour.

The mandate will now run from March 16 to June 17, marking a departure from UNAMA’s customary one-year renewal amid differences among council members over the duration of the extension.

Explaining its vote, Islamabad said it supported the extension because UNAMA played a vital role in promoting “peace, security and stability in Afghanistan,” warning that the country faces an “exponential rise in the threat of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.”

Ambassador Usman Jadoon, Pakistan’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, stated: “Pakistan supports UNAMA in promoting peace, security and stability in Afghanistan which confronts multiple challenges, particularly the increasing threat of terrorism, human rights, narcotics and diminishing humanitarian aid.”

He stressed that “the foremost among the challenges faced in Afghanistan is the deteriorating security situation and exponential rise in the threat of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.”

The ambassador pointed out that “elements within the Taliban regime are actively collaborating (with) several terrorist groups such as the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Balochistan Liberation Army and Majeed Brigade, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant-Kurdistan, Al Qaeda and East Turkestan Islamic Movement, operating with impunity inside Afghanistan.“

Such groups, he said, were “responsible for cross-border attacks against Pakistani civilians and law enforcement personnel, targeting critical infrastructure and public places.”

Ambassador Jadoon further stated that UNAMA had a responsibility to “monitor and analyse the security dynamics across the country” and expressed hope, saying “the next three months will allow us to review UNAMA’s role in Afghanistan in a manner that will help us achieve the long term goals of peace and stability in Afghanistan that is at peace with itself and its neighbours.”

The resolution expressed serious concern over terrorist groups in Afghanistan which “continue to constitute a threat to international peace and security” and called on the Taliban “to take active, immediate, demonstrable and concrete measures” to combat terrorism “in all its forms and manifestations, wherever and by whomever committed.”

It also outlined the Council’s expectation to strengthen “the safe and secure management of weapons and ammunition to prevent their diversion to terrorist groups.”

Diplomats said the three-month rollover emerged as a compromise after China, the penholder on Afghanistan, proposed a one-year extension while the United States supported a shorter renewal.

The resolution also asks UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to appoint a new special representative to advance political engagement on Afghanistan.

UNAMA, established in 2002 under Security Council Resolution 1401, coordinates UN humanitarian, political and development activities in Afghanistan.

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IN sacking Kamran Tessori as Sindh governor, it is not just that the ruling PML-N has bowed to pressure from its coalition partner, the PPP.

Rather, it appears that Mr Tessori had outlived his usefulness to those who brought him into office, as his “sacrifice” is being viewed as part of a larger gambit aimed at reshaping the Constitution and the resource distribution fram­ework between the provinces and the federation, rather than merely antagonising the MQM-Pakistan.

For context, the Muttahida-nominated Mr Tessori was rem­oved from his office last week, and the PML-N replaced him with its senior leader, Nehal Hashmi, who took oath as governor on Friday.

Mr Tessori was not a senior member of the MQM-P when on the advice of the Shehbaz Sharif-led Pakistan Democratic Move­ment (PDM) government in October 2022, then-president Arif Alvi app­ointed him the governor of Sindh.

Insiders say Kamran Tessori was already on ‘borrowed time’, as PML-N had informed MQM-P of its decision to replace him in November last year

It was an open secret that the MQM-P leadership had endorsed the choice of certain quarters, which had instructed the party to make Mr Tessori their deputy convener around a month before his elevation to the province’s top constitutional office. After the February 2024 elections, once the PML-N formed its government at the Centre, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had asked Mr Tessori to continue in office.

For nearly two years, he survived open opposition from the PPP, and covert resistance from within his own party, thanks to his connections.

It was in April 2024 that the PPP, for the first time, publicly demanded his removal on the grounds that Mr Tessori had “failed to bring an end to the political and urban-rural divide”.

‘Manner of removal’

It was not his removal, but the manner in which the decision was made that shocked the MQM-P, as its spokesperson claimed in a statement that the party became aware of Nehal Hashmi’s appointment as the governor via the news media, and that the federation had not taken them into confidence beforehand.

The initial reaction of the MQM-P leadership appeared to surprise the PML-N: lawmakers participating in the National Assembly session staged a walkout, while senior leader Dr Farooq Sattar said he saw no justification for remaining in the coalition government.

There was also talk of an imminent meeting of the party’s central committee, and speculation that the party might exit the coalition government and sit on the opposition benches.

But in public remarks on Saturday, MQM-P Chairman Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui chose not to ruffle any feathers, simply saying that they were not consulted regarding Mr Tessori’s removal.

“We had to face the consequences of speaking up for what’s right. Kamran Tessori has left the Governor House with dignity, having made history,” he said, without announcing any future course of action.

Intention already conveyed

However, background discussions with senior MQM-P leaders reveal that the PPP had been pushing for a change at Governor House for quite some time; before the passage of the 27th Amendment.

Sources said that the PML-N, after receiving a nod from certain quarters, had conveyed its intention to replace Mr Tessori with its own nominee to the MQM-P in late November.

Mr Tessori, they say, had sought one week to resign, but that week turned into several weeks, finally culminating in his unceremonious removal.

“I am not a fan of Tessori, but I must say the PM should have given him a chance to resign,” said one leader. “This shows that not only the PML-N, but even the establishment needs the PPP more than it needs us. So this is a big win for the PPP.”

“In principle, we are against this ‘blackmail’ by the PPP,” said another MQM-P source. “But we know our limitations, as well as those of the PML-N. We both, and even the PPP, have no option but to continue working with each other.”

However, MQM-P leaders believe it would be very difficult for the PPP now to continue opposing its bill, which was supposed to be part of the 27th Amendment package, seeking an empowered local government system.

“We agree [powers that be] need the PPP for the 28th Amendment, a revised formula for the National Finance Commission award, and other legislation… but the PPP can no longer oppose our demand for an empowered local government system. So while it may appear as if we have lost, I’m sure we will emerge victorious in the long run,” said a senior MQM-P leader.

‘Trouble shooter’ intervenes

The optics of instability worried everyone, particularly the powers that be. So much so that known ‘trouble shooter’, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, had to fly to Karachi to convince Dr Siddiqui to accompany him to Bilawal House for a meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari.

The meeting took place on Saturday evening, and on Sunday the Presidency released a statement, saying that matters relating to internal security, law and order and the evolving regional situation were discussed, and the president “stressed unity and stronger efforts for peace and rule of law”.

This was the first high-level contact between the two parties following the removal of Mr Tessori, but according to MQM-P leaders, the issue was not discussed at all.

“The meeting was actually planned for Islamabad even before Tessori’s removal,” said an MQM-P leader, asking not to be named. “President Zardari is also the chancellor of several public sector universities, and Khalid Bhai, being the federal education minister, wants his [Zardari’s] support to bring those universities’ campuses to Karachi and Sindh.”

However, he said Mr Naqvi urged Dr Siddiqui to meet the president in Karachi, as this would help lower temperatures, which were running high after Mr Tessori’s sacking.

The party’s detractors, meanwhile, see Mr Tessori’s removal as evidence of the MQM-P’s weakness.

Without naming the party, Mohajir Qaumi Movement Chairman Afaq Ahmed — who has no love lost for MQM-P — mused that a party that talks about handing over Karachi to the federation cannot even save its own governor.

In a statement, he claimed that the party could not even contemplate quitting the government without the consent of its “handlers”.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2026

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