Who is Ali Larijani, the Iranian official promising a lesson' to the US?

"Appearing on state television just 24 hours after US-Israeli air strikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, Mohammad Pakpour, Larijani delivered a message of fire. America and the Zionist regime [Israel] have set the heart of the Iranian nation ablaze, he wrote on social media. We will burn their hearts."

"Larijani, who accused US President Donald Trump of falling into an Israeli trap, is now at the centre of Tehran's response to its biggest crisis since 1979. He is expected to have an important role alongside the three-man transitional council running Iran after Khamenei's death."

"For decades, Ali Larijani was the calm, pragmatic face of the Iranian establishment a man who wrote books on the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant and negotiated nuclear deals with the West. But on March 1, the 67-year-old secretary of the Supreme National Security Council's tone changed irrevocably."

Ali Larijani, a 67-year-old secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, represents a significant shift in Iranian political messaging following the March 1 US-Israeli air strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and IRGC commander Mohammad Pakpour. Previously known as a pragmatic negotiator who authored philosophical works and engaged in nuclear diplomacy, Larijani delivered inflammatory rhetoric on state television, vowing retaliation against America and Israel. He now holds a central position in Tehran's crisis response alongside a transitional council governing Iran. Born in 1958 to an influential Najaf-based family, Larijani belongs to a politically powerful dynasty whose members have occupied key positions in Iran's judiciary and clerical institutions since the 1979 revolution.

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