“As far as I know,” Khamenei and senior Iranian officials are alive

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi confirmed in an interview on Saturday that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior officials are alive, after the United States and Israel launched a massive attack on Tehran.

Araqchi said in an interview from Tehran with the American network NBC that Khamenei is alive “as far as I know,” and so are “all the senior officials,” after strikes targeted an area in central Tehran that includes the Supreme Leader’s headquarters and the presidential complex.

The Iranian minister confirmed that he communicated with his counterparts in the Arab Gulf states, “and I explained to them that we have no intention of attacking them, but we are attacking American military bases within the framework of self-defense.”

While he stressed that there is no communication with the United States at the present time, he stressed that “if the Americans want to talk to us, they know how to communicate with me. We are certainly interested in reducing the escalation.”