The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Friday that four top Iranian military leaders were killed in strikes carried out in the country.
Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami and the commander of Tehran’s Emergency Command were killed in the strikes across the country “by more than 200 fighter jets,” the IDF said on Friday morning.
Later on Friday, the IDF said that the commander of the IRGC’s Air Force & Senior Chain of Command of the Air Force was also killed.
Two more junior commanders were also killed, the head of the UAV Force of the IRGC’s Air Force, identified by the IDF as Taher-pour, and the commander of the Aerial Command of the IRGC’s Air Force, Davoud Shaykhian.
The slain air force officers “had assembled in an underground command center to prepare for an attack on the State of Israel” when Israeli fighter jets struck the center, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit wrote on X.
In the earlier statement about the slaying of the Iranian chief of staff and two other top officers, the IDF wrote: “These are three ruthless mass murderers with international blood on their hands. The world is a better place without them.”
Additional top Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists are also believed to have been eliminated, according to reports in regime-controlled media and from the Associated Press.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quick to announce replacements for two of the slain men.
State TV said he tapped Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi as the head of the armed forces, replacing Bagheri. Mousavi was previously the top army commander.
In addition, Khamenei chose Brig. Gen. Mohammad Pakpour to lead the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps, replacing Salami.
Israeli Air Force jets attacked dozens of targets, including military and nuclear sites, in a “preemptive, precise, combined offensive” strike against Iran’s nuclear program early on Friday.
The IDF said the attack was based on “high-quality intelligence” and “in response to the Iranian regime’s ongoing aggression against Israel.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday morning said that the operation would “continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat,” vowing to stop “the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival.”