Israel says targeted Tehran airport in wave of overnight strikes
- Army also says strikes overnight hit a key command centre for the Iranian air force as well as a site used to manufacture ballistic missiles
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said on Saturday it had struck aircraft belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, as part of a wave of strikes overnight on the city.
“The Israeli Air Force… completed a broad wave of strikes across Tehran and on military infrastructure located at the ‘Merabad Airport’ in Tehran”, it said in a statement.
“16 aircraft of the ‘Quds Force’ unit of the IRGC were precisely dismantled”, it said, referring to the branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards that oversees its foreign operations.
The military accused the Guards of using Mehrabad International Airport, one of two that serve the capital, to send cash and weapons to its proxies in the Middle East, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
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“Also targeted were several Iranian fighter jets that posed a threat to Israeli Air Force aircraft operating in Iranian airspace”, the statement added.
The army also said strikes overnight hit a key command centre for the Iranian air force as well as a site used to manufacture ballistic missiles.
Earlier on Saturday, Israel’s military said more than 80 fighter jets completed a wave of strikes on Iranian military sites, missile launchers and other targets in Tehran and central Iran.
“Over 80 Israeli Air Force fighter jets… completed an additional wave of strikes targeting infrastructure belonging to the Iranian terror regime,” the military said in a statement.
The statement said that jets hit a military academy belonging to the Revolutionary Guards which “was being used as an emergency asset”.
It said the facility was being used for military operations, making it “a lawful military objective”.
Other targets included an underground command centre and missile storage facility as well as launch sites, “in order to reduce the scope of fire directed at the territory of the State of Israel”, the statement said.
Israeli media reported that the commander of Israel’s air force General Tomer Bar had personally taken part in an overnight sortie to hit Tehran.
When Israel joined the United States in a massive wave of strikes on Iran at the start of the war, the Israeli military said 200 fighter jets took part in the raids, calling it the largest in the air force’s history.
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