There’s a lot of celebration by the people of Iran, although the joint US/Israel operation is not over, and the mullahtocracy has not fallen.

But here are some prominent people who aren’t giving orders anymore:

In addition to Khamenei, several other senior officials were killed in US-Israeli airstrikes too.

They include Iran’s army chief of staff, General Abdol Rahim Mousavi, and defence minister General Aziz Nasirzadeh.

Also killed was Major General Mohammad Pakpour, who took over as the Revolutionary Guard’s top commander after Israel killed its last commander last June, and Ali Shamkhani, a top security adviser to Khamenei.

Iranian media said Khamenei’s daughter, grandchild, son-in-law and daughter-in-law were killed as well.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) also claimed it had killed:

• Saleh Asadi, head of the Intelligence Directorate of the Khatam al Anbiya emergency command;
• Mohammad Shirazi, head of the military bureau;
• Hossein Jabal Amelian, head of SPND (Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research);
• And Reza Mozaffari-Nia, a former head of SPND and former deputy defence minister. …

Under Iran’s system of vilayat-e faqih – guardianship of the Islamic jurist – the supreme leader must be a senior leader with political and religious authority.

Khamenei’s power was often wielded through close advisers. But it is unclear how many have survived, and he was never publicly recorded as naming a successor.

His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a 56-year-old cleric, has been seen as a possible successor. He has never held government office, however.

I have also read that his son is no longer alive, but I don’t know whether that’s true.

This guy was no longer in office, but he seems to have been eliminated as well:

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — a polarizing hardliner who became the face of Tehran’s nuclear defiance and incendiary anti-Israel rhetoric — was reportedly killed in Israeli airstrikes at the outset of the military operation inside Iran.

A report by the Israeli media outlet Ma’ariv stated that Ahmadinejad was under house arrest at the time and was killed in a targeted strike on his residence. …

Ahmadinejad served as Iran’s sixth president from 2005 to 2013, rising from relative obscurity as mayor of Tehran to defeat establishment figure Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a surprise 2005 runoff. …

In 2006, his government hosted a conference in Tehran widely condemned as a platform for Holocaust denial, drawing international outrage.

During a 2005 conference titled “A World Without Zionism,” he quoted Iran’s founding leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, who had referred to Israel as “the occupying regime of Jerusalem” and a “disgraceful cancerous growth” that “must be wiped off the map.” …

His presidency was also marked by an unusual emphasis on Shiite messianic belief in the return of the Hidden Imam, which critics said blurred the line between theology and statecraft.

Internationally, he forged a high-profile alliance with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, framing their partnership as a united front against U.S. influence.

Venezuela. Iran.

Why was Ahmadinejad under house arrest? According to the article, “he clashed openly with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and was repeatedly barred from running for president again.” I assume the reason is connected to that.

Was Ahmadinejad involved in the 1980 US embassy hostage-taking? Perhaps.

By the way, all these assassinations are the result of Israeli action. The US has focused on military targets.

Many of these people are said to have been killed because they were meeting in a group or several groups. Why were they foolhardy enough to do that? Did they figure they wouldn’t be targeted while negotiations were still going on? Maybe. But it also might be the case that they had few alternatives. Cellphones could be tracked – and/or booby-trapped. Pagers? Forget about it. I suppose carrier pigeon or courier might do the trick, but it’s been clear for quite a while that there is an informer (or multiple informers) within the inner circle.

I heard a joke yesterday that the only Iranian leaders left are members of the Mossad, but each doesn’t know the others are agents.