80 IAF jets drop 230 bombs on Iranian terror targets

On Friday, the Israeli Air Force struck more than 400 targets across several areas in Iran, including ballistic missile launchers and drone storage facilities.

By Charles Bybelezer, JNS

More than 80 Israeli Air Force fighter jets dropped a total of some 230 munitions in an additional wave of strikes targeting Iranian military infrastructure in Tehran and central Iran, the military announced on Saturday.

The strikes targeted the main Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military university, Imam Hossein University, which has been used to train IRGC officers.

The university compound also functioned as an emergency asset and, most recently, as an IRGC assembly site during “Operation Rising Lion” in June, the IDF said.

The IAF also attacked a storage site for the Iranian missile unit containing military bunkers and launch infrastructure, as well as an underground ballistic missile production and storage facility from which hundreds of regime soldiers operated and that housed command centers used by Iranian officials.

Additional targets were struck, including launch sites identified in several areas of western and central Iran, in an effort to reduce attacks on Israel as part of an ongoing campaign to degrade the Islamic regime’s firing and defense capabilities, as well as its military production infrastructure.

Overnight Friday, the IAF conducted strikes on military infrastructure at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force as a central hub for arming and funding the regime’s terrorist proxies across the Middle East.

Aircraft loaded with weapons and cash frequently departed from the airport and landed at locations across the region to supply the regime’s proxies, the IDF said.

In the strike, the IAF destroyed 16 planes that were transferring weapons to Hezbollah. Several Iranian fighter jets that posed a threat to IAF craft operating in Iranian airspace were also targeted.

On Friday, the Israeli Air Force struck more than 400 targets across several areas in Iran, including ballistic missile launchers and drone storage facilities.

During the operation, an IAF craft identified a truck in Shahrud transporting an Iranian air defense system to another location. The aircraft targeted the truck, destroying the system.

“The Israeli Air Force continues to strike in order to minimize fire directed at the territory of the State of Israel,” the military said.

Also on Friday, the IAF destroyed the underground command bunker in Tehran of assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the IDF said.

Approximately 50 IAF fighter jets targeted the site beneath the regime’s leadership compound in the heart of the Iranian capital.

The bunker was intended to serve as a secure emergency command center for the supreme leader and continued to be used by senior regime officials after he died in the leadership compound above it on Feb. 28, the IDF said.

According to the IDF, the facility spanned multiple streets in the heart of Tehran and included numerous entrances and meeting rooms for senior members of the Iranian regime.

The bunker was struck by about 100 munitions following a lengthy intelligence-gathering and research process conducted by the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate.

Khamenei, 86, was killed by an Israeli opening strike that targeted his fortified compound in Tehran last Saturday morning.

The targeted killing came as Israel and the United States launched preemptive strikes against the Islamic Republic aimed at neutralizing the threat it poses to the broader region.

“The Iranian terrorist regime has attacked 12 different countries and continues to deliberately target civilians throughout the Middle East,” CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said on Friday.

“This is unacceptable and will not go unanswered. We will continue working with regional partners to address this threat to innocent people across the region,” he added.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday said that the “achievable objectives” of the military operation against Iran are expected to take four to six weeks to complete, with U.S. forces already making progress toward their goals.