The Israeli military announced on Saturday that it had conducted extensive coordinated strikes in Iran, resulting in the deaths of several high-ranking Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported targeting multiple sites in Tehran where influential figures of Iran’s defense establishment were assembled.
A senior Israeli security official revealed to Fox News that over 40 top Iranian security and regime officials were eliminated in these operations.
Described as one of the most significant “decapitation operations” in modern military history, the official noted that Israeli intelligence successfully infiltrated Iran’s security apparatus to facilitate these precise strikes.
This operation, with U.S. coordination, marked a notable moment in Israeli military strategy, targeting key figures including Supreme Leader Khamenei. (Image: Iranian Leader Press Office/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Among the casualties was Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Iranian Security Council and a close advisor to the Supreme Leader, according to the IDF.
Mohammad Pakpour, who was also killed, had been commander of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps since Operation ‘Rising Lion’ and was one of the leaders of the “destruction of Israel” plan, the IDF said.
Saleh Asadi, who headed up the Intelligence Directorate of the Khatam al-Anbiya emergency command, Mohammad Shirazi, head of the Military Bureau of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei since 1989, Iran’s Defense Minister, Aziz Nasirzadeh, Hossein Jabal Amelian, who chaired an organization that advanced projects related to nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, and Reza Mozaffari-Nia, who previously chaired the same organization, were also killed, according to the IDF.
Iran’s defense minister, Aziz Nasirzadeh, was killed in Saturday’s strikes. (IDF)
President Donald Trump also confirmed Saturday that Khamenei was killed in the strikes.
“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS.”
The leaders had all been meeting at a compound in Tehran on Saturday morning.
Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the IRGC, was killed in Saturday’s strikes. (IDF)
The strikes were moved up due to the “target of opportunity,” multiple sources told Fox News, which is why the strikes happened in the daytime in Iran, keeping the element of surprise. “There was a deliberate decision to accelerate the timeline,” one source said.
Ali Shamkhani, who was an advisor to the supreme leader. (IDF)
“This was a massive, wildly bold daytime attack,” a senior US defense official told Fox News.”It caught the senior leadership off guard, a Saturday morning during Ramadan and on Shabbat in the daytime.”
“We hit the senior leaders right out of the gate,” the source added.
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