Decapitation Strike: Israel’s Operation “Rising Lion” Kills Iran’s IRGC Chief, Top General, and Nuclear Scientists

By: Fern Sidman

In a pre-dawn strike that has already redrawn the strategic map of the Middle East, Israel launched a sweeping aerial campaign against Iranian military and nuclear assets early Friday morning, killing several senior figures at the core of the Islamic Republic’s power structure. Among those confirmed dead are General Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC); General Gholam-Ali Rashid, a key architect of Iran’s conventional and asymmetric warfare strategy; and two prominent nuclear scientists, Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi and Fereydoun Abbasi. The military campaign—named Operation Rising Lion—has been framed by Israeli officials as a pre-emptive strike against what they describe as an imminent existential threat.

As reported by Middle East Eye (middleeasteye.net) on Thursday evening, the attack marks one of the most consequential escalations in the decades-long shadow war between Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Explosions rocked the Iranian capital of Tehran and other key military sites across the country in the early hours of Friday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling the operation “a decisive moment for our people and our future.” Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, issued a nationwide emergency order, citing intelligence that a retaliatory strike from Tehran could be imminent.

The Death of General Hossein Salami: The IRGC’s Hardline Spearhead

General Hossein Salami’s death is arguably the most symbolically potent and operationally devastating blow dealt to the Iranian regime in years. As commander-in-chief of the IRGC since 2019, Salami was the face of Iran’s military expansionism, ideological militancy, and defiant posture toward the West and Israel. According to the information provided in the Middle East Eye report, Salami’s tenure marked a hardening of Iran’s military doctrine, overseeing weapons transfers to Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis, and coordinating the IRGC’s Quds Force operations in Syria and Iraq.

Not merely a battlefield tactician, Salami was a strategist who helped fuse Iran’s nuclear ambitions with its military apparatus. Under his leadership, the IRGC’s intelligence and drone warfare capabilities advanced significantly, and he was a key proponent of Iran’s deep entrenchment in Syria following the collapse of ISIS. A fervent ideological figure, Salami often proclaimed the Islamic Republic’s desire to “wipe Israel off the map” and directly threatened U.S. forces in the Gulf. His death, as middleeasteye.net reports, is likely to provoke intense mourning—and possibly retaliation—from Tehran’s hardline factions.

General Gholam-Ali Rashid: The Invisible Hand of Iran’s War Doctrine

Also confirmed dead is General Gholam-Ali Rashid, a lesser-known but immensely powerful figure within Iran’s military elite. Rashid, a senior commander in Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff and close confidant of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was instrumental in formulating the doctrine of “strategic depth” that justified Iran’s military presence in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

According to the information contained in the Middle East Eye report, Rashid had long been suspected of supervising covert elements of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, particularly in harmonizing ballistic missile delivery systems with the regime’s nuclear ambitions. His death significantly depletes the continuity of Iranian military planning at a time when its conventional forces are already overstretched across multiple proxy theaters.

The Nuclear Scientists: Tehranchi and Abbasi

Among the casualties are two individuals critical to Iran’s nuclear progress: Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi and Fereydoun Abbasi. Middle East Eye reported that both men had longstanding ties to Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization and played pivotal roles in accelerating uranium enrichment programs that have placed Tehran on the cusp of weaponization.

Dr. Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, a physicist and former president of Islamic Azad University, was known for his public denials of any military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program. However, Western intelligence sources have long linked him to advanced centrifuge development and technical oversight in enrichment facilities such as Natanz and Fordow.

Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi, a nuclear scientist who survived an assassination attempt in 2010, was a more publicly defiant figure. A former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Abbasi was blacklisted by the United Nations for suspected involvement in nuclear weapons-related research. In recent years, he had returned to prominence within Iranian defense circles, reportedly advising on technical roadmaps to reduce Iran’s breakout time—the period needed to produce a nuclear warhead.

As the report at middleeasteye.net emphasized, the elimination of these two men is not merely symbolic; it represents a serious disruption to Iran’s nuclear technical expertise. “These scientists were walking libraries of Iran’s nuclear advancement,” one Western defense analyst told the outlet. “Their loss sets the program back by years.”

Fallout and Regional Ramifications

In the immediate aftermath of the strikes, Iran’s state media confirmed a shutdown of the country’s airspace, while Middle East Eye cited heightened alerts across the region. Meanwhile, Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport announced the suspension of all flights, bracing for incoming missile and drone attacks that Defense Minister Katz described as “inevitable.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a terse statement distancing the American government from the operation: “We are not involved in strikes against Iran… Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.” According to middleeasteye.net, American forces in Iraq, Syria, and the Gulf region have been placed on high alert, with additional air defenses moved into position.

The report at Middle East Eye also suggested that the Iranian response could include Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi forces in Yemen, both of which have been preparing for what Tehran has long called “the day of reckoning.”

Operation “Rising Lion”: A Calculated Gamble

Israeli defense officials who spoke to middleeasteye.net indicated that the operation was months in the making, accelerated by recent assessments that Iran had crossed critical thresholds in uranium enrichment. The decision to strike was reportedly taken after the Security Cabinet concluded that diplomacy had failed to deter Tehran’s ambitions and that delaying action would invite greater danger.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s declaration of Operation Rising Lion marks a stark transition from covert sabotage to overt military confrontation. As the report at middleeasteye.net noted, this shift may inaugurate a new phase in the Israeli-Iranian conflict—one fought not through proxies or clandestine cyberattacks, but in open warfare.

Israel has made clear that this is only the beginning of a longer campaign. The deaths of Salami, Rashid, Tehranchi, and Abbasi are not the end of Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure—but they are a profound rupture. For a regime that has prided itself on strategic patience and ideological resilience, this blow is unprecedented in its scale and precision.

According to the report at middleeasteye.net, Tehran is expected to convene the Supreme National Security Council within hours. Whether Iran chooses a calibrated response or a wider war remains to be seen, but for now, the Middle East holds its breath.

As the sirens wail across Israel and Iran’s skies grow quiet in anticipation, Operation Rising Lion may well be remembered not only as a military campaign—but as the moment the region stood on the precipice of a wider conflagration.