Israeli fighter jets struck a gathering of Iran’s top mullahs, assembled to elect the next ‘Supreme Leader’ to replace Ayatollah Khamenei, Israeli media reports suggest.
In an overnight strike, Israel carried out fresh strikes on the “Iranian regime’s leadership compound” in “the heart of Tehran,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) disclosed in a statement on Tuesday.
The targeted compound was likely holding a high-level meeting to select Khamenei’s successor after he was eliminated in the opening wave of the ‘Operation Roaring Lion.’
“The IDF targeted a building in which Tehran’s 88-member Assembly of Experts was meeting to choose Iran’s next supreme leader,” the Jerusalem Post reported, quoting Israeli defense sources. “Iranian news agencies reported that the building was ‘flattened’ during the Israeli strikes.”
The IDF said that “numerous munitions were dropped on the Presidential Office and the building of the Supreme National Security Council,” during that strike.
“In addition, the gathering site of the regime’s most senior forum responsible for security decision-making was targeted, as well as the institution for training Iranian military officers and additional key regime infrastructure,” the IDF statement added. “The leadership compound of the Iranian regime is one of the most heavily secured assets in Iran and spans several streets in central Tehran.”
The strikes mark the fourth day of a joint US-Israeli military operation against the regime, which seeks to degrade its terrorist leadership, long-range ballistic missile capabilities, and nuclear weapons program.
With Iran firing ballistic missiles and rockets at Israel and neighboring Arab states — indiscriminately targeting population centers — the IDF continued strikes on the regime’s long-range strike capabilities.
Israeli fighter jets struck launchers and missile manufacturing facilities. “A short while ago, the Israeli Air Force, guided by precise IDF intelligence, struck targets belonging to the Iranian terror regime in Tehran and Isfahan in central Iran,” the Israeli military revealed on Tuesday “During strikes conducted throughout Iran, the IDF targeted industrial sites used by the Iranian regime to produce weapons, particularly ballistic missiles, that constitute an existential threat to the State of Israel.”
“During the strikes conducted in parallel in Isfahan, the IDF struck dozens of targets related to the ballistic missiles array, including launchers and missile storage sites intended to be used against the State of Israel,” the statement added.
The operation to destroy Iran’s strike capabilities is ongoing. In a separate statement, the military said it carried out “additional waves of strikes in western Iran aimed to degrade the Iranian terrorist regime’s live fire array and further deepen the IDF’s aerial superiority in the area.”
The air force struck “dozens of missile launchers, defense systems, and additional live fire arrays utilized by the Iranian terror regime, in order to degrade the regime’s missile arrays and to minimize as much as possible the fire toward the State of Israel.”
The Israeli military has launched a limited ground offensive in southern Lebanon and is carrying out decapitation strikes against Hezbollah’s leadership after the Iranian proxy terrorist group entered the conflict by attacking the Israeli city of Haifa on Monday.
The Israeli armed forces are “conducting ground operations in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah,” the Jerusalem Post confirmed.
The IDF is expanding the existing buffer zone in southern Lebanon in an effort to shield Israeli border towns and cities from Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks. “To prevent the possibility of direct fire on Israeli communities, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have authorized the IDF to advance and take control of additional commanding areas in Lebanon and to defend the border communities from there,” Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Tuesday.
The ground operation in southern Lebanon is currently limited to areas close to the border, but the IDF is prepared for a larger operation to weed out Hezbollah. “Earlier on Monday, IDF Chief Spokesman Effie Defrin said that it was still possible that the military might invade southern Lebanon in response to Hezbollah’s rocket attacks overnight,” the newspaper noted on Tuesday. “Defrin did not commit to such an invasion but notably did not rule it out.”
The IDF targets Hezbollah’s Shia-jihadi fighters and its Iranian-trained and armed Radwan Force as it dismantles the military-terrorist buildup on its northern border. “Over the past day, the IDF struck more than 160 Hezbollah terror targets throughout southern Lebanon,” the Israeli military informed on Tuesday. “As part of the strikes, the IDF struck Hezbollah terrorists and ‘Radwan Force’ terrorists, as well as Hezbollah military command centers used to advance numerous terror attacks toward the State of Israel.
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