Security Gaps That Led to Khamenei’s Death Remain Unresolved: Abbas Araghchi

Iran’s Foreign Minister said in an interview that all communication systems were disrupted during the war, “We were terrified, and all we wanted to know was who among us was alive and who had been killed.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that a “security gap” was responsible for the assassination of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and that this gap still exists. He said the February 28 strike that killed Khamenei exposed a security vulnerability at the highest levels of power — one that, in all likelihood, persists to this day.
In a detailed television interview on Sunday with conservative, pro-government media figure Javad Meghaei, Araghchi revealed that within a matter of seconds, the command center in Tehran’s Pasteur area — home to the Supreme Leader’s offices and headquarters — was struck by three attacks. “The most important point, in my view,” he said, “is that [the US and Israel] had complete information about those meetings. This likely indicates that a security gap existed, and it is highly probable that it still exists.”
The foreign minister clarified that the problem was not limited to infiltration alone — at times it could also involve influencing the direction of decision-making — though he declined to elaborate further on the matter publicly. Araghchi also disclosed that he has not personally met the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, noting that only a handful of people have had access to him. He said that at the time of the attack, meetings of senior military leadership and the Ministry of Intelligence were also underway nearby.
Araghchi said that during the 40-day war, he and his colleagues never left the Foreign Ministry building, as no safe location was available. He revealed that three days after the war began, he met with President Masoud Pezeshkian; five days in, he consulted with Ali Larijani; and on the sixth day, a formal meeting was held at a secure location. According to the foreign minister, “In the early days of the war, the situation was so dire that even senior government and military officials lost contact with one another. All communication systems were affected. We were terrified, and all we wanted to know was which of our colleagues were alive and which had been killed.”