Tehran - Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
Iranian media revealed that President Masoud Pezeshkian sustained minor injuries during the Israeli attack on a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council, indicating that he used an emergency hatch to exit after a power outage. This came days after Pezeshkian confirmed that Israel had attempted to assassinate him, in the first official acknowledgment of the incident.
The semi-official Iranian Fars News Agency revealed that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sustained minor injuries during the Israeli attack that targeted the Iranian Supreme National Security Council building on June 16.
The agency explained that Pezeshkian was participating in a meeting of the Supreme National Security Council when the building was targeted by Israeli missiles.
It added that the explosions resulted in the injury of a number of Iranian officials, including the president, who suffered minor injuries to his leg.
According to the details reported by the agency, the meeting included the heads of the three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial) and a number of senior security and political officials in Iran. Fars News reported that the officials were able to leave the building through a pre-arranged emergency hatch after the power was cut off as a result of the explosions.
It said the attack was carried out using six missiles or bombs that exploded at the building's entrances and exits, in an attempt to close the exits and prevent airflow.
It indicated that the targeting was designed to resemble the operation targeting former Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.
Fars News reported that the accuracy of the information obtained by Israel regarding the exact location and time of the meeting prompted Iranian authorities to open an internal investigation to determine the possibility of a leaker or what it described as an "infiltrator."
In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson last week, Pezeshkian confirmed that Israel was the party that carried out the attack, saying: "They tried, yes. They moved that way, but they failed."
He added: "I was in a meeting, and they tried to bomb the area we were in," stressing that the United States was not involved in the attempt. According to Euronews, Pezeshkian's statement comes weeks after US President Donald Trump announced that he had prevented Israel from carrying out a plan to assassinate 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Khamenei had been out of the public eye for nearly three weeks before reappearing publicly at a religious Ashura ceremony in Tehran over the weekend, to a lavish reception from his supporters. Pezeshkian emphasized during the interview that his country "did not start this war and does not want it to continue in any way," emphasizing that his election slogan focused on achieving national unity and strengthening good neighborly relations.