Iran’s foreign minister describes moment of attack that killed Khamenei

Abbas Araghchi: ‘We do not fight unless the cost of not fighting is higher than the cost of fighting.’ Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Abbas Araghchi: ‘We do not fight unless the cost of not fighting is higher than the cost of fighting.’ Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images Iran’s foreign minister describes moment of attack that killed Khamenei Abbas Araghchi says he has kept on the move since being pulled from rubble after strike on first day of war I ran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has described how he was pulled from the rubble of a leadership compound after the US-Israeli airstrike that killed the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, on the first day of the war, and has survived since by constantly moving around the capital, Tehran, by car. In an interview with the Iranian journalist Javad Mogouyi, Araghchi confirmed Israel and the US had accurate intelligence on the location of Khamenei and other officials, enabling them to target Iran’s senior leadership. He said he had yet to meet the country’s new leader, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, but said his appointment sent “a very important message to the world that there would be no change in the regime’s policies and ideals”. Speaking to Mogouyi before the resumption of all-out hostilities 10 days ago, Araghchi said he had always doubted that negotiations with the US earlier this year would work, but said they had been necessary, even if there was only a 10% chance of success – not least to ensure there was no room for doubt that Iran had pursued diplomacy. “No one would be able to tell us that it was our fault,” he said. In the interview published online on Sunday, Araghchi confirmed that Iran had offered the US a deal on its nuclear programme in the final round of talks in Geneva, but said Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, told him the following day that the mood in Washington had suddenly become more bellicose. The joint US-Israeli strikes began shortly after 9am the next day, when senior officials had gathered for meetings at the ministry of intelligence, the strategic council on foreign policy, and the defence council. ‘Sixty seconds, that’s all it took’: the clinical Israeli-US operation to kill Ali Khamenei Read more “What matters, in my view, is the fact that Israel had intelligence about these meetings,” Araghchi said, adding: “This may point to a security gap that probably still exists. This needs to be fixed.” Araghchi was reporting back to Khamenei’s deputy chief of staff, Ali Asghar Hijazi, when the building was shaken by three blasts within seconds – each closer than the last, he said. “The third explosion was almost next to our building. The section where Mr Hijazi’s office was located was directly hit, and the left side of the building was completely destroyed.” Hijazi’s secretary was killed instantly, but Araghchi and Hijazi escaped the full force of the detonation. “We were on the other side of the building, and after the explosion, the ceiling