Israel Hayom: This is the US target bank when striking Iran
The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom (Israel Today) spoke about the US President Donald Trump ordering his team to prepare a decisive military plan to strike Iran, but he is deliberately keeping his threats vague as the United States builds up its forces in the Middle East.
Washington has stepped up its military moves in the region, with President Trump announcing on Thursday that a major force is heading towards Iran, while Israeli circles are talking about the possibility of a preemptive Iranian attack, ahead of a possible US military strike against Tehran.
The Israeli newspaper reported that the Trump administration is no longer content with phrases such as behavior change, but is now finalizing a bank of goals that includes Iran’s ruling elite and sensitive strategic facilities there.
The Goals Bank includes a list of influential figures at the top of the power pyramid, led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as the ultimate decision-maker in the nuclear weapons and militia support programs in the region, it said.
According to Israel Hayom, the information indicates that Khamenei’s assassination will represent an earthquake that could dismantle the regime, despite the existence of secret lists of who will succeed him.
As reports of him hiding in fortified bunkers grow, all eyes are on his potential successor, who experts say is likely to be an IRGC military general rather than a cleric.
According to the Israel Hayom report, the circle of targeting is expanding to include the new commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Pakpour, and the commanders of staff loyal to the Supreme Leader.
In his report, Kleiman argues that the strike on these military warheads is mainly aimed at creating tactical paralysis, preventing Tehran from carrying out any immediate or organized response.
The list of liquidators also includes names responsible for internal repression, such as Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of the Basij forces, Esmail Qaani, the commander of the Quds Force, and Ali Shamkhani, one of the Supreme Leader’s most prominent advisers and in charge of the nuclear file, in an attempt to undermine the regime’s tools used to quell popular protests.
The US plan doesn’t stop at assassinations, but includes a list of hard targets that include sovereign targets in the capital, Tehran, such as headquarters of the Supreme National Security Council, Basij forces, police, intelligence, and the National Iranian Oil Company, as well as oil reserves in the Khuzestan province, the targeting of which could exacerbate the crisis in Iran’s economy.
At the same time, nuclear sites — specifically the Parchin base, where satellite imagery shows suspicious engineering activity — remain the most pressing target in the Pentagon’s calculations laid out in front of Trump’s office, marking a blow that may be the broadest and most comprehensive in the history of the confrontation between the two countries.
Militarily, the Israeli newspaper noted that in recent months, Iran has been working on developing its ballistic missile system and seeking to rehabilitate nuclear sites.
The Washington, DC-based Institute for Science and International Security has published satellite images showing engineering work at the Parchin military base, about 32 kilometers southeast of Tehran, whose name has historically been associated with the development of a nuclear bomb detonation mechanism.
Tehran has carried out varying maintenance and repair work, but is facing difficulties in restoring capacity, the institute said.
In this context, Kleiman reported in his report on the New York Times that the Pentagon presented Trump with the option of a broad and comprehensive strike on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile sites.
Israeli sources have spoken of the possibility of a pre-emptive Iranian attack before a possible US military strike against Tehran, while fears are growing in the region in the wake of tensions and sharp escalation, especially with the high level of US military mobilization in the region.
