Iran's revolutionary guards Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami killed in Israeli attack
Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that Chief Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hossein Salami was 'assassinated in an Israeli strike in Tehran'.
Senior IRGC commander Gholamali Rashid, and at least two nuclear officials – Fereydoun Abbasi and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi – were also killed in the attacks.
Israel launched a large-scale strike in Tehran, attacking at least six military bases around the city.
"In what appears to be targeted assassinations", Israel attacked areas including Parchin, and residential homes at two highly secure complexes for military commanders and multiple residential buildings around Tehran, four senior Iranian officials told the New York Times.
A senior Israeli official told Iran International that leaders' homes and not civilians were targeted in airstrikes in Tehran.
"Homes of senior military and political officials were targeted in Israeli airstrikes in Tehran," the Israeli official was quoted as saying. "Civilians are not the intended targets," the official added.
Calling the offensive 'Rising Lion,' Israel said it also targeted Iranian commanders and missile factories, and declared a state of emergency in anticipation of retaliatory missile and drone strikes by Tehran.
'Israel targeted Iranian scientists working on a nuclear bomb, its ballistic missile program and its Natanz uranium enrichment facility, in an operation that would continue for days,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Usrael's attack comes as tensions have reached new heights over Tehran's rapidly-advancing nuclear programme.
The Board of Governors at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the first time in 20 years on Thursday censured Iran over it not working with its inspectors. Iran immediately announced it would establish a third enrichment site in the country and swap out some centrifuges for more-advanced ones.
For years, Israel has warned it will not allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon, something Tehran insists it does not want — though officials there have repeatedly warned it could build them.
The US has been preparing for something to happen, already pulling some diplomats from Iraq's capital and offering voluntary evacuations for the families of US troops in the wider Middle East.
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