As part of its ongoing military effort to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, Israel has specifically and successfully targeted the Islamist regime's top military leaders and nuclear scientists.
On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Force claimed that an Israeli airstrike had taken out Iranian Maj.-Gen. Ali Shademani, the regime's new "wartime chief of staff," according to Politico.
Shademani, reportedly the highest-ranking member in Iran's military and a top advisor to Ayatollah Khamenei, had just recently ascended to the chief of staff role after his predecessor, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, was similarly killed by an Israeli airstrike on Friday, the first day of the conflict.
In an early morning X post on Tuesday, the IDF said, "For the second time in 5 days -- the IDF has eliminated Iran’s War-Time Chief of Staff, the regime’s top military commander."
"Ali Shadmani, Iran’s senior-most military official and Khamenei’s closest military advisor, was killed in an IAF strike in central Tehran, following precise intelligence," the Israeli military added.
Politico reported that Shademani's death was just the latest in a series of successful Israeli strikes since Friday that have resulted in the elimination of the top figures in charge of Iran's military and nuclear programs.
On the first day of what has been dubbed "Operation Rising Lion," the IDF announced in a press release that it had successfully targeted and killed via airstrikes the "three most senior military commanders of the Iranian regime."
That included the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Iranian regime, Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, who was the highest-ranking officer in Iran's military, had decision-making authority over Iran's security services, and was in charge of coordinating the regime's various security forces.
Also eliminated was Gen. Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Maj. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, who was in charge of Iran's emergency command system, known as the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.
The elimination of Shademani will likely have a profound impact on the Iranian regime's ability to defend against and counter Israel's attacks, in large part because he was pulling double duty to cover for the Iranian military's significant losses, according to The Times of Israel.
In addition to succeeding Bagheri as the wartime chief of staff, Shademani had also been picked to replace Rashid as the new head of the emergency command system.
The IDF said that Shademani "commanded both the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian Armed Forces," and in his role at the central headquarters, "was responsible for managing combat operations and approving Iran’s attack plans." As such, "he had a direct influence on Iran’s offensive plans targeting the State of Israel."
Meanwhile, in a Monday interview with ABC News, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that a targeted strike to eliminate Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei was under consideration, which, despite what critics say, was "not going to escalate the conflict, it's going to end the conflict."
"The 'forever war' is what Iran wants, and they're bringing us to the brink of nuclear war," he added. "In fact, what Israel is doing is preventing this, bringing an end to this aggression, and we can only do so by standing up to the forces of evil."
