Summary

The IDF struck and killed Jamshid Eshaqim, the commander of the Iranian Armed Forces’ Oil Headquarters, the military said on Thursday evening. “The Oil Headquarters forms an integral part of the regime’s armed forces, enabling the continuation of their activities and military buildup through profits from oil sales,” the IDF stated. The strike that killed Eshaqi took place earlier in the week, the military said, adding that it was conducted following intelligence from the IDF Intelligence Directorate. “Eshaqi led the financial arm of the regime’s forces as well as the military industries responsible for the production of ballistic missiles and the regime’s mechanisms of repression,” the IDF stated. “In addition, Eshaqi worked to allocate funds for financing Iran’s terror proxies across the Middle East, most notably the Hezbollah terror organization and the Houthis.” It went on to say that, for years, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other military forces have been funded by large revenues from oil sales that bypass international sanctions, and that to manage this income, Iran set up dedicated headquarters, making oil revenue a key source for building up the Islamic Republic’s forces and funding terrorist activity worldwide. IDF strikes critical IRGC financial HQ in Tehran Separately, Israeli jets struck the IRGC's financial headquarters in Tehran on Wednesday, the IDF said. With the funds routed through the headquarters, Tehran “operated to produce thousands of ballistic missiles and weapons” and build up the regime’s armed forces, the military added. Among the forces that recieved finding through the headquarters were the Internal Security Forces and the Basij, which the IDF noted “murdered thousands” of civilians during the protests that broke out in late December. The headquarters also worked in the Iranian apparatus that, over the years, transferred “dozens of billions of dollars” to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, the military added. The three groups are among the Islamic regime’s network of regional proxies. Earlier, the IDF said that during its Wednesday strikes on Iran, it had destroyed an IRGC Ground Forces base and a mobile command post. The military also said it had struck a ballistic missile storage site in the Tabriz area. On Thursday, an Israeli airstrike targeted a major highway bridge connecting Tehran to the nearby city of Karaj, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.