Ali Larijani was ruthless – and clear-eyed about west’s implacable hostility to Iran

A 2006 Guardian interview with Iran's slain security chief now reads as a grim warning of the conflict that killed him

Deep down, Ali Larijani always believed that the western powers were bent on destroying Iran's revolutionary regime, for which he had fought on the battlefield.

The prescience of that inner conviction has now been vindicated in lethal fashion as Larijani has become the latest establishment figure to die at the hands of Israel, killed in an apparently targeted airstrike, according to reports.

Robert Tait was the Guardian's correspondent in Tehran from February 2005 until December 2007