Ali Shamkhani, a top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and one of the regime’s most influential security officials, has emerged alive after weeks of reports claiming he had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. The New York Times confirmed Shamkhani’s appearance over the weekend at a funeral procession in Tehran, contradicting Iranian state media accounts that declared him dead last month. Frailer and leaning on a cane, Shamkhani was seen paying tribute to senior Iranian military officers slain in Israel’s recent barrage — a 12-day offensive that targeted Iran’s nuclear and military command structure. It was Shamkhani’s first public sighting since the June 13 strike on his upscale penthouse in northern Tehran, which marked the opening salvo in Israel’s sweeping attempt to decapitate Iran’s senior defense leadership. In a Saturday broadcast on state television, Shamkhani described a harrowing survival: buried under debris for three hours, battered by severe internal injuries and multiple broken bones. “I was crushed,” he told the cameras, before defiantly adding that he had contributed to “making Israel miserable.” His reappearance exposes deep fractures in Iran’s information war. Initial reports had listed Shamkhani among at least 20 senior figures allegedly killed, including commanders from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and top Armed Forces brass. His survival will no doubt be a bitter pill for Israeli planners who believed they had eliminated one of the most powerful architects of Iran’s regional military strategy. But it also raises questions about the accuracy of Iranian battlefield reporting. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)