The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released the names of nine Iranian nuclear scientists killed during the initial strikes in the operation against Iran's nuclear program early Friday, and detailed the efforts to eliminate them, reports the Times of Israel.

According to the Israeli army, these scientists contributed to Iran’s efforts to develop a nuclear bomb. Among them: Fereydoon Abbasi, expert in nuclear engineering; Mohammad Mehdi Tegranchi, expert in physics; Akbar Motalebi Zadeh, expert in chemical engineering; Saeed Bardji, expert in materials science; Amir Hassan Fahahi, expert in physics; Abd al-Hamid Minousher, expert in reactor physics; Mansour Asgari, expert in physics; Ahmad Reza Zolfaghari Daryani, expert in nuclear engineering; and Ali Bahouei Katirimi, expert in mechanics.

“All the scientists and experts who were eliminated were key sources of knowledge in the Iranian nuclear project and had many years of accumulated experience in nuclear weapons development,” the IDF statement said.

According to the statement, many of them were successors of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the "father of Iran’s nuclear program," who was killed by Israeli forces in 2020. The military reported that the nine were killed in simultaneous strikes on Tehran early Friday morning, as part of the same wave of attacks that killed dozens of military commanders, including six senior officials.