Tasnim news agency named the six scientists including Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, who was the president of the Islamic Azad University of Iran.

Fereydoun Abbasi, a former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, was also among the scientists killed, it added.

Friday's strikes hit multiple targets across Iran including residential buildings in Tehran as well as key nuclear enrichment facility in Iran's centre.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami and armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri were killed in the Israeli operation.