A senior Iranian official and adviser to Iran’s supreme leader who had been presumed killed in an Israeli attack last month was seen walking with a cane at a funeral service for military commanders over the weekend in Tehran.
Israel had attacked the penthouse duplex apartment of the official, Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani, with a missile when it launched military strikes against Iran on June 13, beginning a 12-day war that was later joined by the United States.
The apartment, in a high-rise building in the affluent northern part of Tehran, sustained severe damage, photographs and videos on Iran’s state media showed. The ceiling and floors collapsed in a pile of mangled debris. State media reports said at the time that the admiral had been severely injured and hospitalized. The New York Times, citing a person close to his family and Iranian officials, reported that he had not survived the attack.
Admiral Shamkhani had not been seen or heard from publicly since the attack, fueling reports that he was dead. But on Saturday, he attended the funeral procession, wearing a black suit and shirt, and struggling to walk while clutching a cane. He appeared visibly weak, his face thinner, and his back and shoulders hunched over.
Israel launched the military strike on Iran, it said, to target its nuclear facilities, missile factories, fuel depots and gas refineries. The strikes also hit residential apartment buildings where, it said, military commanders and nuclear scientists lived. Iran has said that the strikes killed at least 935 people, including 132 women and 38 children. The Iranian government has also said that 30 commanders and military personnel were killed.
Admiral Shamkhani, 69, is one of Iran’s most influential political figures. He had supervised negotiations with the United States over Iran’s nuclear program before talks collapsed. He had served for years as secretary of the country’s Supreme National Security Council and, most recently, had been appointed as a senior adviser to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
An ethnic Arab from Khuzestan Province who is fluent in Arabic, the admiral acted as the ayatollah’s point man for restoring diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia after years of broken ties.
Ayatollah Khamenei had given Admiral Shamkhani the responsibility for overseeing a committee that was guiding the nuclear negotiations with Washington. Israel launched the attack in June, it said, to stop Iran’s advancing nuclear program and to stop it from weaponizing. The United States later joined the strikes in June, using submarine missiles and B-2 bombers carrying “bunker busting” bombs to target three nuclear sites: Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo.
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has said that it had no evidence that Iran was building a bomb but that the country was stockpiling 400 kilograms, or 882 pounds, of highly enriched uranium, which could enable the government to build 10 bombs. Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes.
In an interview with Iranian state television on Saturday, Admiral Shamkhani said he had been lying in bed and his wife had been sleeping in a separate room at the time of the attack. He said one son who lived with them had left the house 10 minutes before. After the strike, he said, his room was reduced to rubble.
“I first thought there was an earthquake — the rubble fell on top of me,” Admiral Shamkhani said in the TV interview. When he heard a car pass, he realized it could not have been an earthquake. “I said to myself, ‘OK, the Israelis hit me,’” he said. He described losing oxygen under the rubble and having difficulty breathing.
He was stuck under the rubble for three hours, Admiral Shamkhani said. He prayed and kept shouting the names of his wife and son, he said. Rescue teams eventually heard him, and as they dug through the rubble, he said, they spotted his feet first before uncovering his whole body. In the interview he did not address if his wife had been injured.
Admiral Shamkhani said he had sustained serious injuries, including internal injuries, damage to his hearing and broken chest bones. During the TV interview, his voice sounded raspy and his speech was slow. At times, it appeared as if he was struggling to finish his sentences.
At the start of the televised interview, he breathed through an incentive spirometer, a medical device typically used to exercise the lungs after a surgery or an injury to the chest.
He said that he knew why Israel had targeted him but could not say it publicly. He also claimed that he had played a role in “making Israel miserable.”
Admiral Shamkhani said that the chain of senior military commanders Israel killed in June had all been close friends with whom he had planned strategy.
He also said that the nuclear negotiations with the United States had been “trick negotiations” to lay the ground for attacking Iran.
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization. She also covers Iran and has written about conflict in the Middle East for 15 years.
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