Iran President ‘wounded in huge Israeli strike’

Masoud Pezeshkian was reportedly injured as he escaped a bunker in Tehran after Israel dropped six bombs on a National Security Council meeting during the 12-day war.

Israel reportedly targeted Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian. Picture: Iranian Presidency Office via AP.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was reportedly wounded when Israel bombed a building in which he was holding a meeting during the countries’ 12-day war last month.

Iran’s state Fars news agency, which is linked to Tehran’s Revolutionary Guard, reports that on June 16 Israel dropped six bombs on the entry and exit points of a secret underground facility in western Tehran where Mr Pezeshkian was attending an emergency meeting of the Supreme National Security Council.

Fars reports that after the bombs hit, power was cut to the facility. Mr Pezeshkian and other officials reportedly managed to escape through an emergency hatch but the President was “slightly wounded” in the leg as he fled.

The agency writes that the assault was modelled after the Israeli strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a Beirut bunker last year. In that attack, missiles also targeted entry and exit points to block evacuation routes and disrupt ventilation.

Last month Mr Pezeshkian told US media figure Tucker Carlson Israel had tried to assassinate him.

“They did try, yes. They acted accordingly, but they failed,” Mr Pezeshkian told Carlson in response to a question on whether he believed Israel had tried to kill him. “It was not the United States that was behind the attempt on my life. It was Israel. I was in a meeting … they tried to bombard the area in which we were holding that meeting,” he said.

یکی از شهروندان با ارسال ویدیویی،‌ انفجارهای رخ‌داده در غرب تهران را نشان می‌دهد و می‌گوید: «بالای شهرک باقری و حوالی دریاچه چیتگر را زده‌اند.» pic.twitter.com/sTXfHTmt0u

— ايران اينترنشنال (@IranIntl) June 16, 2025

The Fars report has not been independently verified. However Iran International, a London based dissident news site reports that numerous social media posts showed multiple explosions across western Tehran on June 16. The news site said its own investigations showed the blasts were in the area of the Dokuhe Hall, a site affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards in western ehran.

Iran International also reports that Tehran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Intelligence, Minister of the Interior, the Head of the Planning and Budget Organisation, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Guards, were also likely at the meeting, with Israeli media speculating they may have been the target of the attack rather than Mr Pezeshkian, a known reformist leader.

Danny Citrinovich, a former head of the Iran section of Israeli military intelligence told Israel’s Ynet television it was more likely that Israel had wanted to assassinate other members of the Supreme National Security Council rather than Iran’s president.

Ten days after the attack, Ali Larijani, senior adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced there had been a strike on the council.

“They had discovered the meeting of these [military leaders] and wanted to destroy them by bombing them, but they did not succeed,” he said. “Their plan was to eliminate the heads of state, heads of forces, and other influential people on this day and come to the leadership and gather Iran.”

Separately, Fars has published details of what it says are messages Washington sent to Tehran before Iran struck a US military base in Qatar in retaliation for US attacks on its nuclear sites.

After the strike on the Al Udeid base, Donald Trump said Iran had given Washington a warning that it was preparing to launch missiles. The US President thanked Iran “for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured”.

However the vice-chairman of Iran’s Parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission told Fars that in behind-the-scenes communications, Washington sent Iran “specific coordinates, suggesting we target a particular base of their choosing”.

Seyed Mahmoud Nabavian told Fars: “Before Iran’s response, the Americans sent a message via a regional country, even providing the exact location of a military base they suggested we hit.

“The US was pleading: ‘If you’re going to respond, just don’t hit us’,” he claimed.

Mr Nabavian added: “But we informed the Qataris where our real target was. We hit the base we deemed appropriate – not the one the US suggested. The key US air base in Qatar, one of their main operational hubs in West Asia, was targeted.”