Israeli and US air attacks pound Iran as assassination campaign of country’s leadership continues.
Published On 20 Mar 2026
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokesperson has been killed in overnight strikes carried out jointly by the United States and Israel, the IRGC reported, the latest in a mounting toll of senior officials assassinated since the war began.
Ali Mohammad Naini, a 68-year-old brigadier general who took up the IRGC spokesman role in 2024, “was martyred in the criminal cowardly terrorist attack by the American-Zionist side at dawn”, the IRGC said in a statement on Friday.
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His death came just hours after he appeared on national television to insist that Iran retained full capacity to manufacture missiles, even under wartime conditions.
“Our missile industry deserves a perfect score … and there is no concern in this regard, because even under wartime conditions we continue missile production,” Naini was quoted by the Fars news agency as saying.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “Iran no longer has the capacity to enrich uranium and manufacture ballistic missiles”.
The Israeli army said on Friday that it was carrying out strikes across eastern Tehran, as the country marks the Persian New Year, Nowruz, which this year coincides with Eid al-Fitr.
Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Tehran, described the mood in the capital as “hushed”, with none of the customary festivities visible on the streets.
Naini’s killing is the latest in a string of high-profile assassinations that have gutted Iran’s establishment in under three weeks.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening hours of the joint military campaign. He has since been replaced by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei.
Earlier this week, Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and one of the most influential figures in Iran’s establishment, was killed in a strike along with his son and several aides.
The head of the Basij paramilitary forces, Brigadier General Gholamreza Soleimani, and Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib were also confirmed dead within the same 48-hour period.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made little effort to conceal Washington’s glee, saying on Thursday that “the last job anyone in the world wants right now” is a senior leadership role in the IRGC or Basij.
However, other US officials appeared to suggest that Washington and Israel’s aims in Israel were not aligned.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the House Intelligence Committee this week that US and Israeli objectives “are different”, adding that while Israel had been “focused on disabling the Iranian leadership,” Trump’s goals were to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities “and their navy”.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has cast the killings as a means of opening a path for Iranians to reclaim their country, saying on Wednesday the campaign against the country’s leadership “will not happen all at once” but that persistence would give Iranians “a chance to take their fate into their own hands”.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the US and Israel had still failed to grasp that Iran’s political structure does not rest on any single person.
“The presence or absence of a single individual does not affect this structure,” he said.