JERUSALEM - The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it has killed Ali Shadmani, Iran's wartime chief of staff and one of the Islamic Republic's most senior military figures, in an overnight airstrike on a command center in central Tehran.

The strike was carried out by the Israeli Air Force following "precise intelligence" and a "sudden opportunity", the military said in a statement.

Shadmani, described by the Israeli military as the top operational commander of the Iranian armed forces and a close associate of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had commanded both the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian army.

He was appointed to lead Iran's armed forces at the start of the ongoing five-day warfare after Israel assassinated his predecessor, Alaa Ali Rashid, in an earlier strike that started the current fighting.

His killing "adds to a series of eliminations targeting Iran's most senior military leadership and disrupts the chain of command", the Israeli military said.