Israel claimed Wednesday that Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib was “eliminated” in a precision overnight strike, adding another name to the increasingly long list of senior Iranian government figures to be assassinated.
His demise comes after Iran’s top security official Ali Larijani was also killed yesterday alongside another senior high ranking Islamic Republic leadership official.
Iran has not yet commented on Khatib.
The Times of Israel reports Defense Minister Israel Katz says Khatib was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Tehran, adding “significant surprises” are expected today.
“On this day, significant surprises are expected across all arenas that will escalate the war we are conducting against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon,” he says during a security assessment, according to remarks provided by his office.
“The intensity of the strikes in Iran is increasing. The Iranian intelligence minister Khatib was also eliminated overnight,” he says.
Katz says that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have “authorized the IDF to [eliminate] any senior Iranian figure… without the need for additional approval.”
The BBC reports Esmail Khatib was appointed as Iran’s intelligence minister by the late former president, Ebrahim Raisi, back in 2021.
He studied Islamic jurisprudence under multiple high-ranking clerics, including Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The BBC notes he held senior posts in the ministry of intelligence and the Office of the Supreme Leader while being sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for his role as head of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence “for engaging in cyber-enabled activities against the United States and its allies” in 2022.
Khatib is reported to have joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 1980, shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
More to come…
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