United States President Donald Trump was aware of Israel's strikes beforehand, Fox News reported, citing a phone call held between Trump and the outlet's anchor, Bret Baier.
"Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb and we are hoping to get back to the negotiating table. We will see. There are several people in leadership [in Iran] that will not be coming back," Trump said, referring to senior Iranian officials killed in the strikes. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami and "a number of his bodyguards and colleagues" have now been confirmed killed in an IRGC statement carried by IRNA. Iran's chief of the military staff, Mohammad Bagheri, was also killed in the attacks.
Other casualties include Ali Shamkhani, top advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, nuclear scientist and former head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoon Abbasi, Mohammad Mahdi Tehranchi, another nuclear scientist, and Ahmad Reza Zolfaghari, a nuclear engineering professor whose death hasn't yet been confirmed.
