The Israeli military announced Friday the elimination of Ismail Ahmadi, identified as the "chief of the Basij intelligence branch », killed overnight in the latest wave of Israeli airstrikes against Iran.
Iran's command structure is not just being degraded. It is being systematically erased © Mena Today
The Israeli military announced Friday the elimination of Ismail Ahmadi, identified as the "chief of the Basij intelligence branch », killed overnight in the latest wave of Israeli airstrikes against Iran.
His death comes just 48 hours after the killing of General Gholam Reza Soleimani, the former Basij commander, meaning Iran's most feared paramilitary organization has lost both its commander and its intelligence chief within two days.
"His elimination, along with that of the Basij unit commander, adds to the dozens of senior commanders of the Iranian regime's armed forces who have been eliminated during the operation, dealing an even harder blow to the regime's security command and control systems," the IDF stated.
A Leadership in Freefall
Iran's command structure is not just being degraded. It is being systematically erased.
The Islamic Republic built its power on a dense network of ideologically loyal commanders, men who had spent decades inside the Revolutionary Guards system, accumulating institutional knowledge, personal networks and operational authority that cannot simply be replaced by promoting the next person in line.
Each elimination does not just remove an individual. It removes decades of institutional knowledge, personal loyalty networks and operational experience that no replacement can instantly replicate.
The new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen publicly since his appointment. His intelligence chief is dead. His Basij commander is dead. His IRGC spokesperson is dead. His security chief is dead.
At this rate, the Islamic Republic will soon face a situation no one in Tehran dared contemplate: a regime with a chain of command - and nobody left alive to stand in it.
The question is no longer whether Iran's leadership can function effectively. The question is whether it can function at all.
______
The List That Keeps Growing
The arithmetic is becoming difficult to ignore. Since the launch of Operation Epic Fury on February 28, Israel and the United States have eliminated:
The U.S. and Iran found themselves back in a war footing on Wednesday after the most significant exchange in weeks, with Washington threatening even more devastating strikes while Iran protested an attack that it said killed five and wounded dozens of civilians at a wedding.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog has resolved its outstanding questions from an investigation into secret nuclear activities in Syria under the Assad family's rule but made no progress in Iran, it said on Tuesday in confidential reports seen by Reuters.
Jordan's King Abdullah II has expressed his "full support" for the international conference backing Lebanon's armed forces and Internal Security Forces (ISF), for which a preparatory meeting is set to take place in Paris on September 17.
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.
