Israel has assassinated Hossein Salami, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (or IRGC), in unprecedented attacks on Iran that also left several other military figures and nuclear scientists dead, state media reported.
An anchor read a statement on Friday saying: "The news of assassination and martyrdom of General Hossein Salami was confirmed."
Reporting from Tehran for TRT World, journalist Reza Hatemi said: "General Hossein Salami, the most senior IRGC official, has been assassinated in the Israeli air strikes."
Hatemi added that General Gholamreza Rashid, another senior IRGC commander, as well as two nuclear scientists — Dr Tehranchi and Dr Fereydoun Abbasi — were also killed.
"Fereydoun Abbasi was a lawmaker in parliament and former head of Iran's atomic energy agency, who had previously survived an assassination attempt in 2010," Hatemi said.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard is one of the main power centres within the country and controls Iran's arsenal of ballistic missiles.
"The death of Salami is probably the most senior Iranian figure killed by Israel. Yesterday, he had warned that if Israel or the US attacked Iran, Tehran would respond with an operation more severe than Operations True Promise 1 and 2," Hatemi added, referring to Iranian retaliatory attacks on Israel in October and April last year.
Iran vowed a "strong response" to deadly Israeli air strikes.
"The armed forces will certainly respond to this Zionist attack," said Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesman for the general staff of the armed forces, adding that Israel "will pay a heavy price and should await strong response from the Iranian armed forces."
Israeli attacks heightens fears of an all-out war between the two countries, whose history of enmity spans decades of clandestine conflicts and includes land, sea, air and cyber attacks.
The US said it was not providing assistance for the operation. The strikes came a day after US President Donald Trump said US personnel were being moved out of the Middle East because "it could be a dangerous place".
