His account featured repeated anti-Israel and anti-American posts, open praise for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and calls for “psychological operations against the enemy,” including direct links to social media profiles of Israeli government officials. A photo of Sadighi circulated online showed him holding the black flag associated with the Shiite messianic figure, Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi.
The government claimed that the IDF had “dealt a severe blow to regime targets in central Tehran, eliminated hundreds of Basij operatives and assassinated another senior nuclear scientist” in the final 24 hours.
The claim of hundreds of fatalities could not be independently verified but matches IDF assessments following the bombing of six internal security headquarters belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reportedly packed with personnel.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Tuesday morning that “dozens of targets” in Tehran were destroyed overnight. The Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia subordinate to the IRGC, is tasked with suppressing domestic dissent and enforcing Iran’s strict religious codes.
The strikes were part of a broader IDF strategy to undermine regime stability by targeting its internal enforcement apparatus. However, the scale of impact remains uncertain: the Basij reportedly includes hundreds of thousands of active members and claims millions of affiliates nationwide.
The Israeli Air Force also struck missile launch sites in western Iran overnight. According to the IDF, the sites were prepared to fire at Israel as part of the morning salvo that resulted in casualties in Be’er Sheva.
Earlier, Iranian media reported an Israeli strike on a residential area in Gilan Province that killed nine people and wounded 33. In a separate development, the IRGC announced the arrest of “six additional Mossad spies” in Hamadan, western Iran.
