The United States and Israel have struck multiple locations across Iran, including the capital, Tehran, in what US President Donald Trump described as “major combat operations”.
The attacks come amid negotiations between the US and Iran over the latter’s nuclear and ballistic missiles programmes, after weeks of mounting threats from Trump — and eight months after the US and Israel waged a 12-day war against Iran.
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Iran has struck back with missiles aimed at northern Israel. Details of casualties and damage in Iran and Israel are sparse at the moment.
Here’s what we know so far:
Where in Iran have the US and Israel attacked?
Israel first announced on Saturday morning that it had launched a missile attack on Iran. A US official subsequently told Al Jazeera that Israel’s attacks were carried out as a joint military operation with the United States, which has assembled a vast fleet of fighter jets and warships in the region over the past few weeks — the US’s largest military mobilisation in the region since the Iraq war.
Several missiles struck University Street and the Jomhouri area in Tehran, and close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters, the Fars news agency reported.
The Associated Press news agency reported that a strike in Iran’s capital happened near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported that explosions also occurred in Tehran’s northern Seyyed Khandan area.
Explosions have also been reported in the cities of Kermanshah, Qom, Tabriz, Isfahan, Ilam and Karaj, as well as in Lorestan province, according to local media.
What did Donald Trump say?
While announcing “major combat operations”, Trump said that the aim of the US campaign was to “destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground”.
“We are going to annihilate their navy,” Trump added in social media comments.
Trump also said that the US would ensure that Iran’s “proxies” – an apparent reference to a range of Tehran-aligned groups in the region, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis – can “no longer destabilise the region or the world”.
He repeated his prior comments that he would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, even though Tehran itself has repeatedly made clear that it is not interested in building one.
“This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces,” Trump said.
Reuters quoted a US official as saying that the Trump administration was planning a “multiday operation”.
The US president’s comments suggest that Trump was setting “the table for a revolution in Iran” — 73 years after the CIA orchestrated a coup against democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher reported from Washington.
“They’ve done it before. This time, they’re doing it with weapons and bombs rather than covertly through the CIA,” Fischer said. “It’s clear that this is going to be a continuous military operation, with Donald Trump accepting the fact that there may be casualties.”
What is Iran’s response?
Iran has hit back, launching missiles at Israel, the latter’s military has confirmed. Sirens could be heard in several parts of the country, and explosions were seen and heard in Israel’s north.
“The public is requested to follow the instructions of the Home Front Command,” Israel’s military said. “At this time, the Israeli Air Force is operating to intercept and strike threats where necessary to remove the threat.”
Earlier, Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the national security commission of the Iranian parliament, threatened a “crushing” response.
“We warned you!” Azizi wrote on social media. “Now you have started down a path which end is no longer in your control.”
Where are Iran’s leaders?
It is not immediately clear where the 86-year-old Khamenei is. He hasn’t been seen publicly in days as tensions with the United States have grown.
Roads to Khamenei’s compound in downtown Tehran were shut down by authorities as blasts rang out across the capital.
Meanwhile, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted a source in the presidential office as saying that President Masoud Pezeshkian was unharmed.