Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is "as far as I know" still alive, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Saturday in an interview with the American television station NBC News.
- All high-ranking officials are alive, Araghchi said.
- We may have lost one or two commanders, but it's not a big problem. We are dealing with it, the foreign minister told NBC News.
According to Iranian television station al-Alam, Khamenei will address the Iranian people on Saturday afternoon.
Previously, Iranian authorities announced that Khamenei had moved to safety after the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on Saturday night.
An Israeli military spokesman said, according to the AFP news agency, that several senior figures in the Iranian regime were "eliminated" in Saturday's attack.
- Three locations where there were gatherings of the Iranian terrorist regime were hit simultaneously, and several senior figures who were crucial to the leadership of the campaign and the regime's governance were eliminated, the Israeli military officer said in a statement.
Three unnamed sources told the Reuters news agency that the Iranian Defense Minister, Amir Nasirzadeh, is believed to have lost his life in the Israeli attacks.
The same is said to be the case for a leader in the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Mohammad Pakpour.
This information has not been officially confirmed in Iran.
Satellite photos published by an Iranian media outlet show that Khamenei's official residence has been hit in the Israeli-American attacks.
One of the photos published in the Sabrin media outlet shows a building in ruins.
Residents in the area confirm that the Supreme Leader's official residence has been destroyed, according to the dpa news agency.
In the interview with NBC News, Araghchi also said that Iran had attacked US military bases in self-defense.
- We cannot just sit and watch them attack us without responding, says the foreign minister.
/ritzau/
