IDF killed 30 Iranian commanders in first strikes, must ‘hunt down’ remaining: Intel chief

The chief of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Major General Shlomi Binder, revealed on Thursday that the IDF had eliminated 30 Iranian commanders in its initial strikes last Friday but had named only eight top generals killed that morning, and said they must “hunt down” the fleeing Iranian military commanders, wherever they are. “We struck the Quds Force very hard on the first night. This includes roughly 30 commanders, the names that were published are those of the more senior ones. But we’re talking about Chiefs of Staff and Air Force Commanders,” he said.

Binder was speaking to soldiers at one of the directorate’s command centres when he shared details of the elimination of Maj. Gen. Ali Shadmani, Iran’s most senior military commander, earlier this week.

“Two days ago, thanks to excellent work by the headquarters and command and control array, we struck one of the regime’s covert headquarters in the mountains. Some of the commanders managed to flee to a secondary location. Twelve hours later, we succeeded in striking the Chief of Staff of Khatam al-Anbiya, who had fled to the same secondary location in another mountain ridge in Tehran,” said the head of the Intelligence Directorate.

Exhorting the troops for continuing their excellent work, Binder said, “We need to hunt them down wherever they flee, and you are succeeding in turning Iran, as I said earlier, from some distant place, 1,500 kilometres from here, into an army that we know how to deal with, with the sense of it being a first-circle threat. You’ve turned that third-circle threat into a first-circle one. And your ability to deliver high-value results in the coming days is integral.”

“We need to deliver, increase the pace, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. Because this is the kind of threat that, I emphasize, the State of Israel cannot tolerate. Period. That’s the reason we launched this campaign, and that’s the reason you are working hard,” he added.

Binder said that in the IDF’s initial strikes last Friday, 30 Iranian commanders were killed, but they shared names of only eight top generals. The strikes killed dozens of commanders and at least nine nuclear scientists, he added.