‘IRGC chief Hossein Salami, nuclear scientists killed in Israeli strikes’: Iran

Donald Trump confirms he was aware of the plan to strike Iran but the US had no involvement: Hossein Salami, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and two nuclear scientists were killed, along with the military’s chief of staff.

Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on Iran, hitting key nuclear and military sites.

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Israel says it has decapitated the “head of the snake” of Tehran’s military, in a barrage of strikes across the country which killed the chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a senior IRGC official on Friday. The army’s chief of staff, Mohammad Bagheri, was also killed in one of five attacks on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure.

Within hours, Iran responded by launching more than 100 drones at Israel, which were expected to take several hours to reach their targets. The Times of Israel reported that some of the missles are expected to get through the country’s defences.

IRGC officials Hossein Salami and Gholam Ali Rashid died in a direct hit on the military headquarters, while Iran state TV announced nuclear scientists Fereydoun Abbasi and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi were also killed in the Israeli strike.

The head of the IRGC is the most powerful position in Iran’s armed forces, and the death of Salami as well as military chief Bagheri will come as a bitter blow to the regime, significantly weakening the response to Israel’s attacks.

The strike came shortly after US and Israeli officials warned one was imminent and cuts short a US-led effort to resolve the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program diplomatically.

Speaking to Fox TV, Donald Trump said he was aware of the plan to strike Iran in advance but confirmed the US had no military involvement.

“Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb and we are hoping to get back to the negotiating table. We will see. There are several people in their leadership that will not be coming back,” the US President said.

Trump will convene a meeting of his National Security Council on Friday at 11am local time to discuss the strikes, the White House announced.

Not long before launching the drone strikes, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatened that Israel would receive a “harsh punishment” in response, adding: “Israel has prepared a bitter fate for itself, which it will surely receive.”

IRGC’s Chief Commander Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami assassinated in Israeli strikehttps://t.co/Hny74xXpKdpic.twitter.com/r1bJwRe2Ym

— IRNA News Agency (@IrnaEnglish) June 13, 2025

Addressing senior military officers before the initial attack on Iran, Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, said that after devastating Iran’s proxies over the past year, “we are dealing with the head of the snake itself”.

He said the Israel Defence Forces had developed “exceptional capabilities” for the operation.

“Upon taking office, I defined the thwarting of Iran’s nuclear ambitions as a top priority,” Mr Katz said. “Iran is more determined than ever to realise its vision of destroying Israel. We are at a critical juncture; if we miss it, we will have no way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons that threaten our existence.”

Tabriz nuclear site pic.twitter.com/j7fvqS6vi7

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 13, 2025

Earlier, in an address to the country, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was at a “decisive point” in its history and was forced to act to stop Iran from producing a nuclear weapon “in a very short time”.

“Our brave pilots are attacking a large number of targets across Iran,” Mr Netanyahu said, adding that the targets were “Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, Iran’s ballistic missile factories, and Iran’s military capabilities”.

Warning that Iran “has significant capabilities to harm us”, he added: “We’re prepared for that.”

Suggesting the operation would not be limited to today’s attacks, he said it would take “as long as it takes”.

Mr Netanyahu confirmed that strikes hit one of Iran’s key enrichment facilities, Natanz. “We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program,” he said.

Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, addresses the nation. Picture: Government Press Office

Natanz is one of the country’s main uranium enrichment facilities, based near mountains outside the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom, south of Tehran. Iran has been building tunnels in the mountains near Natanz since suspected Israeli sabotage attacks targeted the facility, and it is thought the enrichment facilities are so deep underground it would be almost impossible to destroy them.

A security source told Israel’s Channel 12 TV: “We did not launch an operation, but a war against Iran – it could take weeks.”

As Jerusalem warned the country that Iran would retaliate “immediately”, Israel’s hospitals put themselves on a war footing, urging the public not to present for anything except emergencies.

The attack comes days before US special envoy Steve Witkoff was to meet his Iranian counterparts in Iran for a sixth round of nuclear talks. The US has said Iran must give up the ability to enrich uranium needed to build a bomb. Iran has refused, leaving the talks at an impasse.

The Israeli military official said Iran had been secretly working to build a nuclear weapon.

Mr Katz said he had declared a state of emergency because Jerusalem expected an “immediate” retaliatory attack from Iran.

“Following the state of Israel’s pre-emptive strike against Iran, a missile and drone attack against the state of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future,” Mr Katz said in a statement.

He said he had signed “a special order, according to which a special state of emergency will be imposed in the home front throughout the entire state of Israel”.

A video from Tehran during Israel’s preemptive attack. pic.twitter.com/OV4ccKsiBq

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) June 13, 2025

The IDF’s Home Front Command also warned of a “significant” attack from Iran, as it banned all educational activities, gatherings and workplaces.

Home Front Command’s Tzvika Tessler told Channel 12 news Iran could strike with “heavy missiles” that could reach anywhere in the country.

On Monday, Mr Netanyahu had raised the possibility of strikes in a phone conversation with President Trump, according to two US officials. Soon after, the US began moving some diplomats and military dependants out of the Middle East.

US policymakers could find it difficult to remain on the sidelines of any major conflict, though a person familiar with the administration’s thinking said Washington wouldn’t provide Israel with any “offensive” assistance.

An Israeli F-15 Eagle fighter jets flies over the northern city of Haifa. Picture: Jack Guez/AFP

When Netanyahu raised possible attacks on Iran in Monday’s call, two US officials said, Trump responded that he would like to see diplomacy run its course before turning to military options.

The US and Israel often co-ordinate military operations. But it was unusual for Israel to make such a specific warning about the timing of a possible attack. The senior Israeli official said the advance notice had been designed to make clear Iran had time to accept the US proposal and to allow families of American military and diplomatic personnel to leave the region.

Asked in a congressional hearing on Thursday about a possible Israeli attack, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said: “What I know is that Bibi Netanyahu is going to put his country first, and we’re going to put our country first, and we’re positioned properly in the region to ensure that we’re prepared for any potential contingency.”

The US said on Wednesday it has ordered non-essential staff out of its embassy facilities in Iraq and has allowed dependents of military personnel to return home from bases in the Persian Gulf.

The US recently moved military assets out of the region that could have been useful in an attack or in defending Israel, including one of the two aircraft carrier groups in the area and half a dozen stealthy B-2 bombers.

Israel’s strikes without US backing and military support could test Israel’s capabilities and perhaps limit the damage that could be done to Iran’s nuclear facilities. It could also further strain relations between Trump and Netanyahu.

They underscore the rise in tensions in an already war-torn Middle East as Iran makes rapid progress towards building a nuclear weapon, including piling up large quantities of highly enriched uranium that could be further enriched to produce a bomb. Iran has insisted on its right to enrich uranium and has warned it would retaliate against US troops in the region as well as Israel in the event of an attack.

In a report released in March, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said: “We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.” But Western officials and the International Atomic Energy Agency have shown that it has done work in the past that is related to nuclear weapons. The US says Iran would need only a few months to produce a bomb, and Washington officials said last year that Iran was conducting work that would help it build one. The Israeli official said Iran has recently taken provocative steps with its nuclear program, making a strike more likely.

A weapon assembled on a fast timeline would likely be a crude device that couldn’t be delivered on a ballistic missile.

Iran said on Thursday it had built and would soon open a third uranium enrichment site. After the UN atomic agency member states declared Iran had failed to comply with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations, the head of Iran’s atomic agency, Mohammad Eslami, said Tehran would accelerate its production of near weapons-grade uranium and would open the previously unrevealed enrichment site in what he said is a secure location, according to Iranian state media.

With Dow Jones