Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, announced it plainly: an overnight strike on Tehran had killed Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib. By Wednesday, March 18, the AP described Israel as still working its way through Iran’s leadership, three top officials down in two days.
The day before, Israel had killed Ali Larijani, a senior security official, and Gholam Reza Soleimani, the general in charge of the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij force. Katz promised that “significant surprises” were coming “throughout this day on all fronts”, without saying what he meant.
The man and the ministry
Khatib was a Shi’ite cleric from Khuzestan province in the southwest, born there in the early 1960s. He had run the Ministry of Intelligence for about five years, since 2021, after a career through other parts of the security apparatus. He was seen as unusually well connected: he kept the post in 2024 when a reformist, President Masoud Pezeshkian, replaced the ultraconservative government.
The record against him was long. The US sanctioned him in 2022, over cyberattacks the ministry was said to have ordered. Rights groups accused him of a key role in suppressing protests.
A war with economic fronts
The killing fell on a day dominated by energy. An offshore gas field in Iran took a hit, and Iran fired at Gulf neighbors’ energy sites. The war began on February 28, and the Strait of Hormuz, the channel for one-fifth of the world’s oil, had become nearly impassable. Oil jumped another 5% to above $108 a barrel, the AP said, and the Brent crude benchmark had climbed close to 50% from its pre-war level. Iran also hit a Saudi province where many oil fields sit and threatened Qatar and the UAE.
Iran struck back at Israel too. Two people died in an Iranian missile attack near Tel Aviv that Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear who had attacked South Pars. Israel did not claim it.
Sources
- Both sides in Iran war ratchet up attacks on energy facilities (AP via Spectrum News)
- Iran's intelligence minister Khatib killed (via 7News)
- From Khamenei to commanders: Iran's leadership losses (AFP via Gulf News)
