On the dreadful night when the US and Israel bombed the Tehran buildings that housed Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a man renowned for his courage, wit, and insatiable desire for martyrdom, a fate for which he always prayed, there was Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, who shared the Supreme Leader's last moments and recounted how he and others escaped from the rubble of the leadership compound.
Talking with Iranian journalist Javad Mogouyi, Araghchi, who was reporting to Ali Asghar Hijazi, the deputy chief of staff to the Supreme Leader, when three explosions shook the building within seconds, said that the third blast struck almost directly beside the building, destroying the section that housed Hijazi's office.
"The ceiling, walls and everything collapsed on us," Araghchi recalled. "I grabbed Mr Hijazi's hand and we made our way through the beams and broken timber while cries for help echoed around us." Hijazi's secretary was killed instantly, but Araghchi and Hijazi managed to make their way through the debris as water poured from fractured pipes overhead.
Considering the precision of the strikes by Israel and the US, Araghchi said they pointed to a security lapse on Iran's part, as they had managed to obtain accurate intelligence on the whereabouts of Iran's senior leadership.
Araghchi said that, for three days after the incident, officials were cut off from communications, desperately trying to determine who had survived and who had been martyred. He was forced to flee the scene with the help of a passer-by because his car had also been damaged in the strike.
Reflecting on the conflict, Araghchi said Tehran had prepared contingency plans should the Supreme Leader be assassinated, including a strategy, codenamed "Code 110", to close the Strait of Hormuz.
He also disclosed that Iran had offered Washington a nuclear agreement during the final round of negotiations in Geneva, only to learn from Oman's Foreign Minister the following day that the mood in Washington had abruptly shifted towards military confrontation.
Despite the devastating losses, Araghchi insisted the attack failed in its principal objective of paralysing the Iranian state. "The enemy thought they could destroy the leadership by targeting it," he said. "They failed."