IDF continues strikes on senior Iranian targets, including nuclear scientists and key Hezbollah figures.
The IDF continued on Saturday to strike and eliminate senior figures in Iran. Among those killed was Hussein Khalil, who was considered the personal bodyguard of Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah.
Khalil underwent specialized training in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the 1990s and even commanded Hezbollah fighters in the city of Aleppo alongside the Assad regime.
Another individual eliminated in an airstrike on a building in central Tehran was Seyed Asgar Hashmabitar, a senior nuclear and missile scientist, who was considered one of the central figures in Iran’s military nuclear project.
Hashmabitar was one of Iran’s leading experts in pulse technologies. In the 1990s, he wrote a thesis in Tehran about digital control for ballistic missiles.
In a separate attack, nuclear scientist Issar Tabatabai-Kamesheh was killed, along with his wife. This marks at least the 11th scientist involved in the nuclear project to be killed since the war began.
The IDF Air Force also eliminated Behnam Shahriari, the commander of Unit 190 of the Quds Force, responsible for smuggling weapons, equipment, and funds to terrorist organizations in the Middle East. This elimination took place while he was traveling near the Iraq border.
On Friday night, Said Izadi, the commander of the “Palestine Brigade” in the Quds Force, was also killed in Qom. He was responsible for coordinating with Hamas and Hezbollah and was considered Iran’s primary liaison to the resistance axis.
In addition to these eliminations, the IDF Air Force attacked approximately 150 military targets across Iran using around 50 fighter jets. Two main bombing runs took place overnight in central Iran: the first, at midnight, targeted about 25 sites, during which 130 munitions were dropped; the second, in the morning and afternoon, targeted an additional 20 sites, including radar systems, naval bases, and command centers in the Ahvaz area, using around 50 munitions.
Alongside the airstrikes, the IDF’s UAVs destroyed dozens of missile launchers of various types overnight. According to the IDF, some of these launchers were found abandoned on the side of the road after Iranian soldiers fled the scene.
