The United States and Israel launched a sweeping wave of military strikes against targets across Iranian cities on Saturday, triggering explosions and thick columns of smoke over the capital Tehran, in what President Donald Trump described as an effort to eliminate "imminent threats" from Iran.
"The United States' military began major combat operations in Iran," Trump said in a video message posted on social media from his Florida golf club. He vowed to "destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground" and said the US would "annihilate their navy," while offering the Iranian military a choice between "immunity" or "certain death."
Israel's defence minister Israel Katz described the coordinated action as a "preventive strike." The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier, was reported approaching the Israeli coast as part of what Trump called the biggest US military build-up in decades in the Middle East.
Iranian state television confirmed President Pezeshkian was "safe and sound" following the strikes. Iran's Fars news agency reported seven missile impacts in Tehran's Keshvardoost and Pasteur districts. AFP journalists on the ground heard multiple blasts and witnessed two large columns of smoke rising over the city centre.
"I saw with my own eyes two Tomahawk missiles flying horizontally toward targets," an office worker told AFP anonymously. "At first we heard a dull noise and thought it was a fighter jet."
Iran's health ministry said ambulances had been dispatched, though no immediate casualty figures were confirmed. Iran, Iraq, and Israel all closed their airspaces to civilian traffic. US embassies in Qatar and Bahrain urged American citizens to take shelter immediately, while sirens sounded in Jerusalem and Israeli authorities issued emergency cellphone warnings to citizens.
The military action came just one day after US-Iran talks in Geneva ended without agreement. Trump said Friday that Iran was "not willing to give us what we have to have," citing stalled negotiations over Tehran's nuclear and missile programmes. However, Oman, which mediated the Geneva talks, offered a starkly different assessment.
Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, meeting US Vice President JD Vance in Washington, said Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling of any uranium and would degrade current stockpiles into fuel, potentially rendering the enrichment level debate moot. Iran had previously agreed to restrictions on low-level uranium enrichment under the 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump abandoned during his first term.
In his State of the Union address, Trump alleged Iran was developing missiles capable of striking the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned it would be a "very big problem" for Iran if missile discussions were excluded from negotiations, a position Iran has firmly rejected, insisting talks remain focused on the nuclear issue alone.
Rubio on Friday also designated Iran a state sponsor of wrongful detentions over the jailing of US citizens, adding to a growing list of sanctions and diplomatic pressure. He is set to travel to Israel for further talks on Iran on Monday, in a rare move without reporters aboard his plane. The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said it would hold technical discussions with Iran on Monday, calling on Tehran to cooperate "constructively."
The strikes also follow weeks of brutal domestic crackdown inside Iran, where authorities killed thousands of people while crushing mass protests.
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