In a notable development, Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has issued a chilling warning to the West following the assasination of Ali Larijani. In his statement, Khamenei has declared that the “criminal murderers” behind the assassination of security chief Ali Larijani will face immediate consequences.
The statement, originally reported by Al Jazeera and circulated by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency, follows the official confirmation of Larijani’s death in an Israeli airstrike.
A leadership crisis
The assassination marks a significant escalation in the 19-day-old conflict which has thrown Iran off into some sort of a leadership crisis creating a power vacuum at the top. Serving as the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Larijani was a key architect of Iran’s defense strategy, was killed alongside his son, Morteza, in the Tehran suburb of Pardis.
Following the assassination of former Supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Larijani was the first senior Iranian leader who presented himself to the state media and announced the creation of a temporary leadership council.
Mojtaba Khamenei, who was elevated to the position of Supreme Leader following the assassination of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the war’s opening day (February 28), described Larijani as an “intelligent, committed individual.”
“The anti-Islamists should know that shedding this blood at the foot of the tree of the Islamic system only makes it stronger,” Khamenei stated. “Every blood has a price that the criminal murderers of the martyrs must soon pay.”
Potential impact for India?
This fragmentation of Iranian leadership can translate into diplomatic troubles for Indian bureaucrats as well as India’s diplomatic channel for safe passage through Hormuz ran through exactly this tier of Iranian decision-making. PM Modi spoke to President Pezeshkian, EAM Jaishankar held multiple calls with FM Araghchi, but the operational decision on which ships pass and which don’t sit with the SNSC headed by Larijani who is now dead.
Recent reports published by The Indian Express suggest that following a major rupture in Iranian leadership structure, the possibility of the implementation of a goodwill agreement on Indian ship passage appears to be more fragile than ever.