Iran launches cluster-warhead strike on Israel after Larijani assassination
Iran launched missiles fitted with cluster munitions at Israel, killing two civilians, in what it said was retaliation for the assassination of Iran’s top security chief Ali Larijani.
Iran’s state television reported on Wednesday (March 18) that Iran had attacked Israel’s Tel Aviv with missiles carrying cluster warheads, which Tehran said was retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security leader.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a televised statement that the weapons used in the attack on Israel included Khorramshahr-4 and Ghadr missiles, both of which carry multiple warheads.
The overnight attack on Tuesday (March 17) killed two civilians in an area near Tel Aviv that is densely populated and also home to key Israeli military installations. Since the war began, at least 14 people have been killed in Israel.
Israel has previously said that Iran has repeatedly used cluster warheads, which break apart in mid-air into large numbers of small explosive submunitions that scatter over a wide area, making them harder to intercept.
Iran’s government confirmed on Tuesday that Larijani had been killed, marking the highest-level Iranian figure to be slain since the first day of the war, when the US-Israeli offensive killed former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, where Larijani served as secretary, said his son Alireza Bayat, who was also the council’s deputy secretary, was killed in an Israeli strike on Monday night (March 16).
Reuters reported that the targeted killing took place as the US-Israeli war against Iran showed no sign of easing.
A senior Iranian source told Reuters that Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s current supreme leader, had rejected a proposal submitted to Iran’s foreign ministry calling for “de-escalation or a ceasefire with the United States”.
According to official information, Khamenei, attending his first foreign policy meeting since taking office, said it was not the right time for peace until the United States and Israel surrendered, accepted defeat and paid compensation.
However, the source did not specify whether Khamenei, the son who has not been seen in photographs or on television since his appointment last week, attended the meeting in person or remotely.
