An increasing number of local and regional leaders began aligning themselves with the eunuch Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, who sought to defeat and succeed the Zands.

Their two armies met outside of the city in a battle in which Agha Mohammad Khan prevailed, using camels to scare the Zand horses on the battlefield.

The following year, 1790, Lotf Ali Khan led his forces against the Governor of Kerman, who had refused to appear in person to acknowledge the Zand leader.

A mutiny ensued and Lotf Ali and several hundred loyal soldiers rushed back to Shiraz, where they found the gates barred against them.

The governor of Kazerun was captured and blinded, an impulsive act by Lotf Ali Khan that "weakened the sympathy which his youth, his courage, and his misfortunes were so calculated to incite.

As the Qajar soldiers scattered, Lotf Ali assumed Agha Mohammad Khan had fled with them and that the camp was secured.

(An alternate version of this story suggests that Lotf Ali Khan was tricked into waiting until daybreak to enter the enemy camp on advice of a Qajar spy named Mirza Fathollah-e Ardelani.

All the male inhabitants were killed or blinded, and a pile was made out of 20,000 detached eyeballs and poured in front of the victorious Qajar leader.

Finally, Lotf Ali Khan was betrayed by the ruler of Bam who feared that his brother had fallen into Qajar hands in Kerman.

The last of the Zand rulers was finally delivered to Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, who had long waited to exact revenge on his arch-rival.

"The page of history would be stained by a recital of the indignities offered to the royal captive..."[1] It is reported that Lotf Ali Khan was blinded, imprisoned and tortured in Tehran, before being choked to death in the late of 1794.

The British writer Sir Harford Jones Brydges knew Lotf Ali, whom he called, "the last chivalrous figure among the kings of Persia."

Brydges writes sadly of Lotf Ali's death, of his "little son" who was castrated, his daughters who were forced to marry "the scum of the earth" and his wife who was dishonoured.

This is largely due to the fact that Karim Khan Zand never claimed the title of king or shah, but chose simply to declare himself the advocate or regent of the people.