Three senior military commanders and two scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear program have been confirmed dead after Israeli air strikes.
The men were subject to international sanctions over the role in Iran’s longstanding bid to join Israel as the second nuclear-armed power in the Middle East.
Days before Iran was due to enter more talks over its nuclear program, Israel spurned diplomacy for lethal air strikes against its most powerful nemesis.
Friday dawned with dozens of Israeli jets dropping bombs from the sky over the capital Tehran and elsewhere across Iran.
Israel characterised the bombings as an urgent strike to head off an existential threat from a regime just months away from producing nuclear weapons — the ultimate big stick in modern statecraft.
That would make Iran the second nuclear-armed nation in the Middle East after Israel itself, which was thought by the CIA to have the bomb more than half a century ago.
The Israeli government launched the strikes having lost some diplomatic cover over its siege on Gaza, with allies including Australia imposing sanctions on two members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet over calls for violence against Palestinians.
But Iran this week thumbed its nose at “serious concerns” of the UN nuclear watchdog, vowing to ramp-up production of “near-weapons-grade uranium”.
Israel, flying solo without its key ally the US, was ready to make good on its threat to avenge direct attacks from Iran including a barrage of ballistic missiles last October.
The Israel Defense Forces said it was both a “pre-emptive, precise, combined offensive … on Iran’s nuclear program” and a “response to the Iranian regime’s ongoing aggression against Israel”.
Targets included the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Tehran, a nuclear enrichment site at Natanz to the south, and two military bases and a nuclear research centre in Tabriz to the north-west.
Iranian television also showed attacks on a residential complex in uptown Tehran, and in Kermanshah province to the west near the Iraqi border.
Israeli bombs killed civilians including children, according to Iranian state media.
But the faces of the dead known so far — those who have been named — are top Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists.
Mohammad Bagheri
Mohammad Bagheri was chief of staff of the armed forces of Iran.
He oversaw a military machine with less than half of Israel’s budget but more than three times the active personnel, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Bagheri was sanctioned by the UK in 2022 for supplying Russia with drones in its war on Ukraine.
The US and Canada sanctioned him a month earlier over the harsh crackdowns on protests in Iran after the death in custody of a woman accused of breaking dress standards.
Hossein Salami, in military uniform, gesticulates behind a string of multi-coloured microphones in front of a black backdrop.
General Hossein Salami, chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, said he was proud to lead what was designated a terrorist organisation by Washington.
Hossein Salami was commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which oversees Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs.
A one-time mechanical engineering student and veteran of the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, Salami took over the role in 2019 weeks after the Trump administration in the US designated the IRGC a terrorist organisation.
Salami reportedly said he and the IRGC were proud to be branded as such by Washington.
Major General Gholam Ali Rashid
Major General Gholam Ali Rashid was subject to international sanctions over his role in Iran’s first direct attack on Israel last year.
Major General Gholam Ali Rashid was commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, which coordinates joint Iranian military operations.
He was sanctioned by the US, UK, Canada and others in April last year for his role in Iran’s first direct attack on Israel in the form of missiles and drones, in coordination with Houthi forces in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and militias in Iraq.
Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani
Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani was a nuclear physicist sanctioned by countries including Australia over his role in developing nuclear weapon delivery systems.
Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani was a nuclear physicist and reported longtime member of the Revolutionary Guard who once ran the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
He was sanctioned by the UN Security Council in 2007 for his role in developing nuclear weapon delivery systems, and later by countries including Australia.
He survived an assassination attempt driving to work in 2010 when a man on a motorbike attached a bomb to the window of his car — an attack Tehran blamed on Israeli intelligence.
Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi
Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi was a theoretical physicist who once lectured Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei over nuclear policy.
Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi was a theoretical physicist and president of the Islamic Azad University.
According to a US government-funded NGO, Iran Watch, Tehranchi once supervised an Iranian program to develop nuclear weapons which included explosive testing, and continued to work for the regime.
He was involved in a charity overseen by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to whom he delivered a speech on nuclear and science policy in 2018.
Tehranchi was sanctioned by the US in 2020 with heightened export licence requirements over national security concerns because of his involvement in nuclear proliferation activities.
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