Iran’s top regime operative threatened to eliminate President Donald Trump as the joint US-Israeli military operation against Tehran entered its eleventh day on Tuesday. Ali Larijan, chief of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, boasted that the regime was not afraid of the U.S., and the president should be careful “not to be eliminated.”
After Ayatullah Khamenei’s elimination in last week’s Israeli strike, Larijan is the one calling the shots in Tehran. For years, Larijani served as a senior aide to Khamenei and was widely regarded as his successor. While Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, has been appointed as the new ‘Supreme Leader,’ Larijan has been described by the media as the real ‘power broker’ within the regime.
President Trump has repeatedly been threatened with assassination by Iranian regime operatives, including Khamenei himself. Last week, the U.S. military took out the Iranian Islamic Guard (IRGC) commander, Rahman Mokadam, who hatched several assassination plots targeting President Trump and senior members of his administration.
The French TV channel Euronews reported Larijani’s threat:
Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani issued a veiled threat to US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, warning him to be careful “not to be eliminated” and saying Tehran was not afraid of his “empty threats.”
“Iran is not afraid of your empty threats. Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation,” said Larijani in a post on X.
“Take care of yourself not to be eliminated,” Larijani added.
While it is questionable whether Tehran has the means or the capacity to make good on its words, Larijani’s immense stature within the regime should not be underestimated.
While Larijani could never have succeeded the late Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, the veteran Iranian powerbroker has re-emerged as a central figure in Tehran’s security establishment after his son Mojtaba Khamenei was named the new ayatollah.
His closeness to Mojtaba Khamenei became even further apparent after Larijani feted his appointment by the Assembly of Experts, saying on X that the decision had left Israel and the United States “in despair”.
Larijani is widely seen as part of the close circle surrounding the new supreme leader, alongside judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Ahmad Vahidi, who has been appointed commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on March first, and senior security official and commander of Khatam al-Anbiya Central HQ, Ali Abdollahi.
Israeli fighter jets continue to strike deep inside Iran, destroying a massive ballistic missile development complex in Tehran in an overnight strike, the Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday morning.
“The IDF continues to deepen its strikes on the systems and capabilities of the Iranian terror regime,” the military disclosed. “Overnight (Monday), the Israeli Air Force, acting on IDF intelligence, completed a wave of strikes on key infrastructure belonging to the Iranian terror regime in Tehran.”
One of the targets of the nighttime raid was a large underground complex used for developing ballistic missiles. “One of the strikes targeted a weapons research and development complex used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” the military said.
The IRGC was using the underground facility for testing missiles. According to Israel’s Ynetnews, it “included an underground route where the armed forces of the Revolutionary Guard conducted experiments and tests as part of missile development and manufacturing processes.”
On Monday night, Israeli fighter jets struck at the heart of Iran’s international terrorist operation by hitting the headquarters of the IRGC’s Quds Force. “In addition to this complex, the Israeli Air Force struck infrastructure within the main headquarters of the ‘Quds Force’, along with additional production sites for various weapons and defense systems belonging to the Iranian regime,” the IDF statement added. “These strikes were conducted as part of the effort to deepen the damage to the core arrays of the Iranian regime.”
The Jerusalem Post summed up the key military achievements after ten days of the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign:
Iran’s ballistic missile launches have dropped by about 90% from the first day of the war across the Middle East – including attacks on roughly a dozen Sunni countries – while the number of missiles fired at Israel has declined by roughly 75-90%, depending on the day.
Of Iran’s roughly 450-500 missile launchers, about 75% are now out of commission – roughly half destroyed outright and the other half rendered unusable by cave-ins or logistical damage caused by airstrikes.
Out of the Islamic Republic’s 2,500 missiles at the start of this war, over 1,000, likely between half and two-thirds, have been used or destroyed.
Larger segments of the supply chain for reestablishing and rebuilding damaged segments of the ballistic missile apparatus have been damaged as compared to June 2025, when that was a secondary goal to bombing the nuclear program.
Top headquarters and command and control centers for the IRGC, the Basij militia, the Iranian missile and drone force, the terror-spreading Quds Force, and the aerospace center relating to dual-use nuclear capabilities all over western Iran, Tehran, and certain other locations have been destroyed.
Later on Tuesday, the Israeli armed forces disclosed that it conducted “a wave of strikes against six military airfields in Iran” and their Air Force “continues to deepen aerial superiority over Iranian skies.”
With the regime’s air defenses severely crippled, Israeli fighter jets destroyed Iranian warplanes sitting on the airfields. “Last night, a wave of strikes against six major Iranian military airfields was completed,” the IDF announced. “As part of the strikes, numerous aircraft were dismantled, including Quds Force aircraft belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian combat helicopters.”
These airfields were being used to supply weapons to Islamic terrorist groups across the Middle East. In addition, runways and defense and detection systems intended to operate against IAF aircraft operating in Iranian airspace were struck,” the IDF disclosed. “The airfields that were struck were used by the Iranian terror regime to arm and finance terrorist proxies across the Middle East, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthi terrorist regime.”
“These strikes impair the Iranian military’s ability to operate its air power against IAF aircraft and disrupt the regime’s ability to rearm—not only for the regime itself, but also for its terrorist proxies across the Middle East,” the IDF concluded.
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