The Israel Defense Forces killed Iran’s top military propagandist in an overnight strike Friday, taking out Ali Mohammad Naini, the spokesman and head of public relations for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“Naini served in several propaganda and public relations roles,” the IDF said in a statement Friday morning. “In his role as the IRGC’s main propagandist for the past 2 years, he disseminated the regime’s terrorist propaganda to its proxies across the Middle East in order to influence and advance terror attacks against Israel.”
Iranian state television confirmed his death.
Naini’s elimination comes days after he publicly declared that Iran’s missile program was running at full strength. “Our missile industry score is 20 and there is no concern in this regard because we are producing missiles even during war conditions,” he said in a recent statement. “Which is amazing, and there is no particular problem in stockpiling.”
Naini is the latest in a string of senior Iranian officials killed this week. The IDF also reported the deaths of Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and a close associate of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Larijani, according to the IDF, personally oversaw the crackdown on Iranian protesters during recent unrest inside the country.
Also killed were Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij Resistance Force, a paramilitary wing of the IRGC, and Esmaeil Khatib, Iran’s intelligence minister.
The strikes represent one of the most concentrated targeting of the Iranian regime’s senior leadership since the conflict began three weeks ago.
