U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday morning that Operation Epic Fury has already eliminated at least 48 senior Iranian officials, including the former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Speaking with Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, President Trump said that the United States has a specific list of priority targets remaining after dozens were taken off the board during the opening salvo of the joint U.S.-Israeli military operation on Saturday.
“It’s moving along. It’s moving along rapidly. This has been this way for 47 years,” he said. “It’s moving along rapidly. Nobody can believe the success we’re having, 48 leaders are gone in one shot. And it’s moving along rapidly.”
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that it had killed at least 40 “key” Iranian military commanders, including the chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Abdolrahim Mousavi. According to the IDF, the former Major General was eliminated within a minute of the strike on Ayatollah Khamenei’s compound, the Times of Israel reported.
“The majority of the highest-ranking senior military officials of the Iranian security leadership have been eliminated by the IDF,” the Israeli military said.
Others to have been confirmed dead include the former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Major General Mohammad Pakpour, former Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, and former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Shamkhani.
Iranian state media have also confirmed that multiple members of the Ayatollah’s family were killed in strikes on Saturday, including his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter.
The New York Times reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) had been tracking the whereabouts of Ayatollah Khamenei for months prior to the bombing of his compound in Tehran on Sunday.
According to the report, the American intelligence agency learned that a meeting of senior leadership, including the Supreme Leader, was set to take place at the compound on Saturday.
Due to the rarity of such a meeting, the United States and Israel are said to have taken the unusual step of launching strikes during broad daylight to ensure that multiple senior leaders could be taken out at the same time.
Fighter Jets reportedly took off from Israel at around 6 a.m. local time on Saturday morning, reaching their target in Tehran at around 9:40 a.m.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that 30 Israeli bombs were dropped on Khamenei’s compound, reducing it to rubble.
Separately, President Trump said on Sunday that Trump American forces have “destroyed and sunk” nine Iranian naval ships, some of which he claimed were “relatively large and important”.
“We are going after the rest — They will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also! In a different attack, we largely destroyed their Naval Headquarters. Other than that, their Navy is doing very well!” he wrote on Truth Social.
Despite many in the political and military leadership being wiped out on Sunday, the Islamist regime has still continued to function, with an interim council government being formed, consisting of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, and Guardian Council jurist member Ayatollah Alireza Arafi.
Pezeshkian said on Sunday that the council had “started its work” while Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera that there are “constitutional procedures in place” and that a successor to Supreme Leader Khamenei could be announced within “a day or two”.
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