Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) confirmed in the early hours of Friday morning local time that Israeli airstrikes on targets in the country eliminated Major General Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Other arms of Iran’s state news apparatus confirmed several other high-profile regime members, including two nuclear scientists, were killed in the strikes. While unverified reports suggested that Salami may be far from the only high-ranking Iranian regime official to have been targeted successfully in the operation, he is the only one whose death the Iranian government has confirmed at press time.
Salami has sustained a place as one of the most prominent and belligerent senior leaders in the Iranian Islamist regime, regularly threatening attacks on America and Israel. In what was perhaps his final public appearance on Thursday, Salami declared that his forces were “war-tested and experienced,” prepared for war against its enemies.
The IRGC is both a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and a formal wing of the Iranian Armed Forces. Among its chief operations is to sustain relations between the Iranian terror state and its jihadist proxies, such as the Houthis in Yemen and Lebanese Hezbollah, and with fellow rogue states such as Venezuela and Cuba.
IRNA confirmed Salami’s death in a brief message that offered no details on the occurrence. It confirmed that Salami died in Tehran and claimed him a victim of “assassination.” In a separate report, the state news outlet confirmed a barrage of airstrikes over the capital city by the Israeli Air Force.
Another Iranian state media outlet, PressTV, reported early Friday that the strikes had “martyred … several other senior IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists.
“Veteran nuclear scientists Mohammad-Mehdi Tehranchi and Fereydoon Abbasi have also been martyred in the attack,” PressTV reported, adding confirmation for now that at least one Iranian military leader, the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Bagheri, is still alive and in Iran’s war room plotting the nation’s response.
The Times of Israel, citing Iranian state television, reported that Israel apparently also bombed one of the most prominent uranium enrichment facilities in the country, the Natanz facility, several times. Scattered but anonymous reports about potential disruptions in Iran by undercover Mossad agents have also surfaced, though Israel has not confirmed them.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the airstrikes during a national address on Friday morning, identifying the strikes as “Operation Rising Lion.”
“This operation will continue for as many days as it takes,” he asserted, stating that Iranian officials were actively taking steps to “weaponize” its enriched uranium stockpile, calling Tehran a “clear and present danger to Israel’s survival.”
“We are defending the free world from the terrorism and barbarism that Iran fosters and exports across the globe,” Netanyahu continued. “Many around the world — even if they won’t say so openly — know in their hearts: thanks to your determination and courage, citizens of Israel, and thanks to the bravery of Israel’s fighters, the world will be a safer place.”
Salami was one of the most powerful people in Iran and a top military leader; his loss will significantly damage Iran’s military operations. The general regularly threatened to attack neighboring Israel and celebrated the deadly activities of Iranian proxies such as Hamas, whose brutal terror spree against Israel on October 7, 2023, prompted Israel to declare war against Hamas in its enclave in Gaza.
“The enemy sometimes threatens us with military action. We have always said, and we say today, that we stand fully ready for any scenarios, situations, and circumstances,” Salami said in a speech on Thursday. “We are war-tested and experienced. We have built strength and developed a strategy in our plans. We monitor the depth of the enemy’s army and … have practiced our plans.”
The general was responding to widespread reports that Israel was preparing an attack over Iranian territory in response to alarming reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) this week indicating that Iran was rapidly nearing possession of enough fissile material to build a nuclear weapon. The IAEA, a U.N. agency, declared Iran in violation of several non-proliferation commitments in a resolution passed on Thursday, which expressed particular concern regarding evidence of rapidly accelerating uranium enrichment activities.
The resolution followed a report by the head of the agency, Rafael Grossi, on Monday that warned Iran was maintaining illicit enrichment sites and attempted to “sanitize” them when caught, meaning the IAEA could not credibly verify whether the activity occurring there was consistent with the nation’s nuclear commitments or not.
The Atomic Energy Agency of Iran responded to the IAEA’s condemnation on Thursday by announcing the debut of yet another uranium enrichment facility to be built in the near future.
“The head of the Atomic Energy Organization has issued orders to establish a new uranium enrichment facility in a secure location and to replace first-generation centrifuges at the Fordow enrichment site with advanced IR-6 machines,” IRNA reported.
The Israeli airstrikes occurred shortly before a scheduled sixth round of nuclear talks between diplomats from Iran and America, previously expected to occur on Sunday. Neither party has addressed going through with nor canceling the talks at press time following the attacks. Throughout the first five rounds of negotiations, however, Salami was consistently in the public eye, threatening America rather than embracing diplomacy.
“These are serious warnings to the Zionist [Israeli] and American authorities … if you make the slightest mistake, we will open the gates of hell for you,” Salami proclaimed in May.
Salami regularly appeared in Iranian state media condemning America as a “small and weak” country with no true political allies and predicted the collapse of the states of both Israel and America.
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