Earlier this week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that top Iranian security official Ali Larijani (pictured above) and the commander of Iran's internal Basij militia, Gholamreza Soleimani, were killed in overnight strikes.
Two incoming salvos from Iran were spotted at Tel Aviv and elsewhere as Hezbollah targeted Israel's north, so the Israeli military carried out a "wide-scale wave of strikes" across Iran's capital and stepped up strikes on Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.
"If you want a regime change, you have to take out the regime and the prime suspects," notes Bob Maginnis, president of Maginnis Strategies, LLC. "On day one of this operation, they took out the ayatollah and many of his top aides and generals. Going after these two [is] a clear message that there's more work to be done."
Maginnis says Iran is controlled to a large degree by the Basij. Embedded in the local communities, in the mosques and in the villages, the militia has also been one of the Iranian government's main tools for suppressing protests.
"During internal protests in Iran, particularly in recent periods as demonstrations intensified, Basij forces under Soleimani's command led the main repression operations, employing severe violence, widespread arrests and the use of force against civilian demonstrators," Israel's military said in a statement.
Functioning as a rapid-response street force, a tool of intimidation and violence, and a nationwide surveillance network, the Iranian regime benefits from the militia's scale and loyalty.
"They are the real ideologues that keep the regime glued together," Maginnis explains. "You do away with them, and you really don't have a good handle on the population."
He clarifies that the militia is not necessarily the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Still, going after the generals is legitimate in terms of the military opposition because they have been keeping the regime afloat as well.
While the fall of these two officials is a blow to the country's leadership, Maginnis asserts the Iranian regime still has its fingers.
