Srilanka, March 17 -- Israel's Defence Minister Katz has just said that Iran's security chief Ali Larijani has been killed.

Known for decades as a measured, pragmatic figure within Iran's establishment, Ali Larijani was secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, helping steer the country's strategy amid the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Born in 1958, in Najaf, Iraq, to a wealthy family from Amol, Larijani belongs to a powerful dynasty once described by Time magazine as the "Kennedys of Iran".

His father was a prominent religious scholar, and at 20 Larijani married Farideh Motahari, daughter of a close confidant of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ruhollah Khomeini.

Unlike many peers, he had a secular academic background, earning a d...