JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said on Saturday it had struck 16 Iranian aircraft at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport, which it said was a key hub for the Islamic republic’s Revolutionary Guards.
“Overnight, 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.
“Also targeted were several Iranian fighter jets that posed a threat to Israeli Air Force aircraft operating in Iranian airspace”, the statement added.
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 on the same day.
“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.
In one of the biggest raids announced by Israel since the regional war began on Feb 28, 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.
When Israel joined the US 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.
