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Israel said on Wednesday it killed another top Iranian official, the third in two days, as it continues its longstanding strategy to target its enemy’s leaders.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib had been killed in an overnight strike and promised that “significant surprises are expected throughout this day on all fronts.”
Iran did not immediately confirm Khatib’s death. Israel killed top Iranian security official Ali Larijani and the head of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s Basij force, Gholamreza Soleimani, on Tuesday.
Following the announcement, Katz added that the Israeli military would be authorised to “eliminate any senior Iranian official for whom the intelligence and operational circle has been closed, without the need for additional approval.”
“We will continue to thwart and hunt them all down,” he added.
Israel said this week it had also targeted Akram al-Ajouri, head of the military wing of the group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in a strike in Iran.
And it has vowed to hunt down Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since he succeeded his father.
Iran vows to avenge ‘martyrs’
According to Iran’s Fars and Tasnim news agencies, funerals for Larijani and Soleimani were due to be held Wednesday alongside those of more than 80 Iranian sailors killed in a US strike on their frigate off Sri Lanka earlier this month.
It was not certain the funerals would go ahead. The slain ayatollah’s funeral was due to be held days after he was killed, but that was later postponed indefinitely.
However, the Mehr news agency published a photo of Larijani’s coffin bearing his photo and draped with the Iranian flag, alongside that of his son, whose death was also announced.
In contrast to Mojtaba Khamenei, Larijani, 68, had walked openly with crowds at a pro-government rally last week in Tehran.
Despite losing its ayatollah of nearly four decades as well as Larijani, a key pillar of the Islamic republic, the powerful Revolutionary Guards and the leadership as a whole have remained defiant.
The Guards, the ideological arm of the military, said they had launched missiles at central Israel as retaliation for Larijani’s death and warned of more to come.
The “pure blood of this great martyr…will be a source of honour, power and national awakening against the front of global arrogance,” they said.
Additional sources • AFP