Ali Shadmani, Iran’s top military commander, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Tehran.
The Israeli military announced on Tuesday that it killed Ali Shadmani, Iran’s wartime chief of staff, in an overnight airstrike on a command centre in central Tehran.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) described the strike as a result of “precise intelligence and a sudden opportunity.”
Shadmani, one of Iran’s highest-ranking military figures, was considered the top operational commander of the Iranian armed forces and a close associate of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He previously led both the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian army.
He had assumed command of Iran’s armed forces after the assassination of his predecessor, Alaa Ali Rashid, in an earlier Israeli strike that triggered the current five-day conflict.
His death “adds to a series of eliminations targeting Iran’s most senior military leadership and disrupts the chain of command,” the Israeli military stated.