In yet another blow to the top Iranian leadership, Israel on Wednesday claimed that the country’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib, who was targeted in overnight strikes, has been killed.
In a statement, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said, “Last night Iran’s Intelligence Minister Khatib was also eliminated.”
Shortly after his claim, Iran also confirmed the killing of its intelligence minister.
The assassination of yet another top Iranian leader came hours after Ali Larijani, who served as Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was killed on Monday night.
Larijani, a close associate of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, was targeted alongside his son, who has also reportedly died in the attack.
Additionally, Brigadier General Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij forces, was also killed in what Iranian state media called an “American-Zionist enemy” attack. Soleimani had led the internal security force for six years and was considered a key figure in the military response.
Top Iranian leaders killed in US-Israeli strikes
The US and Israeli strikes have taken out several top Iranian leaders since the start of the war on February 28. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his top security adviser, Ali Shamkhani, were, along with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Cmdr. Mohammad Pakpour, Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of staff of the armed forces, and Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh were killed in US-Israeli strikes.
Khamenei’s chief military secretary, Mohammad Shirazi, military intelligence chief Saleh Asadi, Hossein Jabal Amelian, chair of the SPND, Iran’s nuclear weapons research organization, and former SPND chair Reza Mozaffari-Nia have also been killed since the Iran war’s start.
Major General Mohsen Darebaghi, deputy chief of logistics and industrial research, police intelligence chief Gholamreza Rezaian, and Major General Bahram Hosseini Motlagh, plans and operations chief, were among the other prominent Iranian leaders killed in the US and Israeli strikes.