Major General Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, has been killed by Israeli strikes, Iran’s state TV IRINN reported.
Bagheri, Iran’s highest ranking military officer, is the second senior figure known to have been killed by Israel’s unprecedented attack on Iran in the early hours of Friday.
Multiple Iranian state media outlets reported earlier on Friday that General Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in Israel’s overnight strikes.
Bagheri, Iran’s highest-ranking military officer, is the second senior figure known to have been killed by Israel’s unprecedented attack on Iran in the early hours of Friday.
Multiple Iranian state media outlets reported earlier on Friday that General Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in Israel’s overnight strikes.
Israeli source tells CNN that Israel undertook “deception operation” to surprise Iran
Israel carried out what it called a “deception operation” in the days leading up to its unprecedented strikes aimed at making the Iranian leadership and the Israeli public believe there would be no attack, an Israeli official has told CNN.
The official said the operation included the “deception” of media and political commentators and “thus managed to surprise Iran.”
They said the plan had only “a few secret partners” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had distributed announcements and briefings aimed at influencing discourse in Iran and Israel.
Despite the apparent campaign, US intelligence warnings that an Israeli strike was imminent began to be reported by US media on Thursday, following comments from President Donald Trump and a US State Department decision to move non-essential staff from embassies in Iraq and around the Middle East.