Ali Mohammad Naini, a spokesperson for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its deputy of public relations, has been killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes, Iranian state TV reported on Friday.
Naini (sometimes spelled Naeini) served as a spokesman for the IRGC from 2024 until his “martyrdom,” the Iranian media said.
His last known public reaction in the capacity of a spokesperson was rebuffing a claim from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran’s missile production had been rendered inoperable, Israeli media reports said.
The details of his killing are yet to be known, as neither side has provided any information on the operation or the circumstances.
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Referencing how Iranian schools consider a 20 to be a perfect score, the general said: "Our missile industry score is 20 and there is no concern in this regard because we are producing missiles even during war conditions, which is amazing, and there is no particular problem in stockpiling."
He also said the war would go on.
"These people expect the war to continue until the enemy is completely exhausted," the general said of the Iranian public. "This war must end when the shadow of war is lifted from the country," the Associated Press quoted him as saying.
Tehran's domestic bullies being destroyed?
Israel and the US are currently looking to break the Islamic Republic's tools of domestic control in their campaign of bombardment, which is now nearly three weeks old. Since the war began, monitors estimate that up to a third of strikes have targeted the top echelons and major bases of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and its Basij volunteers tasked with enforcing loyalty to Iran's theocratic rulers.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it struck more than 10 Basij positions across the capital. A video posted online and verified by the AP showed two vehicles burning near traffic cones on a multi-lane boulevard in central Tehran. The location matched that shown in aerial footage released by the Israeli military of a Tuesday strike hitting a checkpoint as a bus and cars passed.
Iranians have been spreading videos and posts on social media showing the locations of checkpoints, often tagging the Farsi account of the Israeli military and urging it to strike, sometimes in the name of protesters who were killed in the area. Others trade news about checkpoints to alert commuters to traffic. Several videos show checkpoints set up under bridges, apparently as cover from strikes.