About 50 Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck an underground bunker in Tehran on Friday morning previously used by Iran’s slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the IDF said.
According to the military, the bunker was located beneath the Iranian leadership compound in the capital. Military officials said Khamenei was killed in the opening strike of the operation before he was able to reach the underground facility to direct the campaign. However, the compound continued to be used by senior Iranian regime officials.
Massive Israeli Air Force combat sortie razes Khamenei's Tehran bunker
(Video: IDF)
Military intelligence units had tracked the bunker for years, including the Intelligence Directorate’s Research Division and the elite Unit 8200 and Unit 9900, mapping the complex in detail, the military said.
More than 100 munitions were dropped on the site during the strike, which the Israeli military said targeted a facility the Iranian leadership had considered “impenetrable.”
According to the military, the underground bunker extended beneath entire city blocks in central Tehran and included multiple entry points and meeting rooms designed for senior Iranian officials.
“The underground compound was created by the regime as a base for advancing military activities and its extremist ideologies against the State of Israel and the Western world,” the military said in a statement.
The leadership compound served as the regime’s central and most important command headquarters, the military said, adding that the destruction of the bunker deepens the blow to Iran’s command-and-control capabilities.
The strike followed earlier attacks in the same leadership complex, carried out in coordination with the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate and the Operations Directorate. Previous targets included the building housing Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, a meeting complex used by the regime’s senior leadership forum, the Assembly of Experts building in Tehran and the main military university of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.