(Istanbul=Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Dong-ho = The Israeli military announced on the 17th (local time) that it had killed the Iranian military's wartime chief of staff, Ali Shadmani, in an airstrike.

"The Israeli military conducted an airstrike overnight at a command post in central Tehran, killing Ali Shadmani, the chief of the wartime General Staff, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and a close associate of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei," the military said in a statement.

Shadmani was appointed as the successor to General Gholam Ali Rashid, commander of the Hatam al-Anbiya air defense unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the 13th, and served as wartime chief of staff, commanding both the Iranian military and the IRGC, the Israeli military explained.

The Israeli military said that by eliminating Shadmani, it had weakened the Iranian chain of command, adding that the Hatam al-Anbiya emergency command had been responsible for managing combat operations and approving firepower plans.

The Israeli military has announced that since the start of Operation Rising Lion against Iran on the 13th, it has killed around 20 military leaders, including Iranian Army Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri and IRGC Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami.

dk@yna.co.kr