Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 47 other top Iranian military and intelligence officials were killed in the opening attack, Trump said.
United States and Israeli forces launched a combined strike on Feb. 28 that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and decapitated the senior military leadership of the Persian state.
The strike was part of the opening salvo of a larger combined operation, dubbed Operation Epic Fury by the U.S. government and Operation Roaring Lion by Israel.
The 86-year-old Khamenei was killed in strikes targeting his leadership compound and residence in downtown Tehran.
Chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Lt. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi and Iranian Minister of Defense Maj. Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh were killed alongside Khamenei, according to Iranian state media.
The joint U.S. and Israeli operation also targeted a gathering of dozens of leaders at an Iranian Defense Ministry compound and a second gathering at a compound hosting Iranian intelligence leadership.
Forty-eight top Iranian leaders were killed in the opening joint U.S.-Israeli strike, President Donald Trump told Fox News on March 1.
In a Feb. 28 post on Truth Social, Trump said the United States and Israel worked closely and employed sophisticated tracking technologies to track Khamenei and other Iranian leaders.
“There was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do,” Trump wrote.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had been tracking Khamenei’s location for months, according to a person familiar with the operation not authorized to comment publicly, speaking to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The New York Times was the first to report the active U.S. intelligence effort to track the Iranian leader.
In his social media post, Trump further urged the Iranian people to seize the opportunity afforded by the operation.
“This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country,” Trump wrote.
The U.S. president said Iranian military and police forces are seeking immunity, and expressed hopes that they will “peacefully merge with the Iranian patriots” to bring Iran back to “the Greatness it deserves.”
By Ryan Morgan
