Israel Kills Commander of IRGC Navy

Israel announced on March 26 that it had killed the commander of the naval forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Commodore Alireza Tangsiri, as the Jewish state, along with the United States, continues to wage war against Iran.

“Tonight, the [Israel Defense Forces (IDF)] thwarted, in a precise and lethal operation, the commander of the naval forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, [Alireza] Tangsiri, along with senior naval command officials,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said.

“The man who was directly responsible for the terrorist operation of mining and blocking the Strait of Hormuz from [global] shipping, was eliminated and thwarted. This is a clear message to all senior officials of the Iranian terrorist organization, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which currently controls Iran: the IDF will hunt you down and thwart you one by one.

“We continue to operate in Iran with all our might and power to achieve the goals of the war.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also confirmed the killing, saying of Tangsiri, “This man had a great deal of blood on his hands; he was also the one who led the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” in a video statement posted to X on the same day.

“This is yet another example of the cooperation between us and our friend, the United States, toward the common goal of achieving the objectives of the war,” he added.

Israeli officials have repeatedly said that no senior Iranian official was immune from being attacked. Earlier this month, Katz said that he and Netanyahu had authorized the military to target officials without prior authorization.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) also confirmed the killing in a statement on X, saying it “made the region safer.”

CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper said that Tangsiri held his command for eight years, during which time the IRGC Navy had “harassed thousands of innocent merchant mariners, attacked hundreds of vessels with one way attack drones and missiles, and killed countless innocent civilians.”

Cooper added that Tangsiri had been designated a “global terrorist” by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2019, and was sanctioned again in 2024.

Cooper went on to say that since the start of the war, 92 percent of the IRGC Navy’s large ships had been “eliminated” and it has “completely lost [its] ability to project power in the Middle East or around the world,” adding that the loss of Tangsiri had set it on an “irreversible decline.”

He also said strikes would continue and called on the members of the IRGC Navy to “immediately abandon their posts and return home.”

Numerous high-profile figures in the regime, most notably then-Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei, have been killed since the start of the war.

US Hits 10,000 Targets

Meanwhile, U.S. forces have struck 10,000 military targets in Iran—more when combined with Israeli forces—in Operation Epic Fury, Cooper said in an update on March 25.

The U.S. military remains “on plan or ahead of plan, in achieving very clear military objectives for eliminating Iran’s ability to project power in meaningful ways outside its borders,” Cooper said, as the conflict is in the midst of its fourth week. About 92 percent of the Iranian navy has been destroyed, and the regime’s drone and missile launch rates have been reduced by 90 percent, he added.

The strikes have also crippled the regime’s capability to rebuild, Coopers said, adding, “Today, we have damaged or destroyed over two-thirds of Iran’s missile, drone, and naval production facilities.”

Trump Says Iran Is Negotiating

U.S. President Donald Trump on March 25 said that Iranian leaders “are negotiating” with the United States on a path to end the war.

“By the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they’re afraid to say it because they will be killed by their own people. They’re also afraid they’ll be killed by us,” Trump said from the National Republican Congressional Committee’s fundraising dinner.

Earlier that day, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said the exchange of messages through mediators does not equate to negotiations with Washington.

“Messages being conveyed through our friendly countries and us responding by stating our positions or issuing the necessary warnings is not called negotiation or dialogue,” Araghchi said on state television. “It is simply an exchange of messages through our friends.”

Naveen Athrappully and Kimberly Hayek contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi. The Epoch Times regrets the error.