Iran's armed forces chief of staff killed: State media

by IANS |

Tehran, March 1 (IANS) Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Abdolrahim Mousavi was killed in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, the country's state-run IRIB TV reported on Sunday.

The strikes on Tehran also killed Chief Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Mohammad Pakpour, Secretary of the country's Defence Council Ali Shamkhani, and Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, Xinhua news agency reported.

Additional names of victims will be released subsequently, according to local media reports.

Earlier in the day, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that seven senior Iranian military commanders, including Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh and the Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), were killed in what it described as precise airstrikes carried out across Iran.

The reported killings occurred as part of a wider joint offensive by the US and Israel targeting Iran's military and strategic infrastructure, a development that has sharply heightened tensions across the Middle East.

According to the IDF, the operation was executed by the Israel Air Force (IAF) after the Military Intelligence Directorate identified two separate locations in Tehran where high-ranking Iranian security officials were gathered.

Meanwhile, Iran's Islamic Republic Guard Corps (IRGC) has vowed to punish the "murderers" of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following the confirmation of his death by state television, and promised that the response will be the "most ferocious offensive operation in history" against the US and Israel.

In a statement posted on its official Telegram page, the IRGC said, "The hand of revenge of the Iranian nation for a severe, decisive and regrettable punishment for the murderers of the Imam of the Ummah will not let go of them."

It further said that the IRGC, the Armed Forces, and the Basij forces will "powerfully continue the path of their leader in defending his legacy, standing firm against internal and external plots and delivering what it described as a lesson-giving punishment to aggressors against the Islamic homeland."