The United States and Israel on Saturday unleashed a coordinated military assault on Iran, with explosions rocking Tehran near the offices of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
President Donald Trump announced the “major combat operations” in a stark social media video, accusing Tehran of defying nuclear curbs and developing missiles that threaten America.
Iranian state media reported blasts across the country, smoke billowing over the capital, as authorities sealed roads and shuttered airspace amid chaos.
Trump urged Iranians to “take over your government” and warned of possible US casualties, framing the strikes as a bid to dismantle Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and missile programme.
The 86-year-old Khamenei, unseen publicly for days, may or may not have been at the targeted site; no confirmation emerged on his status. Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz called it a move “to remove threats,” hitting military, government and intelligence sites, per an anonymous briefed official.
This follows months of US naval and air deployments to force a nuclear deal, amid Iran’s claims of halting enrichment since June—though it bars inspectors—and a self-limit on missiles to 2,000km.
Tehran insists on uranium rights while backing groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, rejecting talks on missiles; no casualty toll has been released, but reprisals against US bases loom. Mobile networks blacked out as pilots were warned away, with further blasts reported post-initial strikes.
US President Donald Trump confirmed that the United States military has begun “major combat operations in Iran,” following blasts heard in Iran’s capital city, Tehran, in the early hours of Saturday.
Trump, in a video posted on his social media platform, said the objective of the US is to eliminate imminent threats from the Iranian regime, which he described as “a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.”
Continuing, Trump, who tied the threat elimination to the defence of the American people, admitted that “the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties.”
