Shamkhani represented Iran in high-level China-brokered peace talks with Saudi Arabia, leading to the two re-establishing diplomatic ties after a long-running cold war. Most recently, he took part in nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration.

The individuals eliminated were central knowledge holders in Iran's nuclear program, with decades of combined experience across nuclear engineering, physics, chemistry, and materials science - Clcik o

Israel launched strikes across Iran on Friday, saying they targeted the "heart" of Iran's nuclear programme. The strikes killed Hossein Salami, chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards - a powerful branch of the country's armed forces - other senior military figures and nuclear scientists, Iranian state media reported.