Tehran, March 18 (IANS) Iran's Supreme National Security Council confirmed that its secretary Ali Larijani has been killed in an attack, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported early Wednesday.

In a statement, the council said Larijani died early Tuesday alongside his son Morteza Larijani, deputy for security affairs at the council's secretariat Alireza Bayat, and several others, Tasnim reported.

The council praised Larijani's long service to Iran's development and called for national unity in the face of external threats, Xinhua news agency reported.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel had killed Larijani in ongoing strikes on Iran.

Meanwhile, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Tuesday confirmed the death of Gholamreza Soleimani, head of the Basij volunteer force, in a US-Israeli strike.

The deaths came amid heightened regional tensions following joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran starting February 28, to which Iran and its regional allies responded with attacks on Israeli and US interests across the Middle East.

Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi has roundly rejected having had any new contact with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff. Western media reported that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei rejected proposals to reduce tensions or negotiate a ceasefire with the United States.

The IRGC launched a new "Haj Qasem" ballistic missile for the first time against Israel, describing it as a precision-guided weapon named after slain commander Qassem Soleimani, according to Tasnim news agency.

--IANS

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