Saturday, February 28, 2026
Donald Trump Launches a War of “Epic Fury” on Iran
Donald Trump Launches a War of “Epic Fury” on Iran
The U.S. and Israel have ignited a campaign to topple the Islamic Republic—with little thought to what comes after.
A banner depicting President Donald Trump hangs outside the Department of Justice building, on Saturday.Photograph by Kylie Cooper / Reuters
President Donald Trump has launched a capricious and personal war on Iran that is more ambitious, politically and militarily, than any past U.S. campaign in the perpetually volatile Middle East. In an eight-minute video released in the wee hours of Saturday morning, while most Americans were still asleep, he announced that his goals are the abolishment of the theocratic regime, total capitulation by its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—or else the death of its members at U.S. hands—and an end to the country’s controversial nuclear program.
Trump called for Iran’s ninety-two million people to rise up in popular resistance and form a new government. “For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it,” he told the Iranian people. “Now you have a President who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.” It is an audacious gambit, undertaken in coördination with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of Israel, that has no clear outcome. For a man who hungers for the Nobel Peace Prize, this war of choice borders on delusion.
Ali Vaez, who heads the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, told me, “The idea in Washington and Tel Aviv that bombing Iran will somehow trigger a popular uprising is not strategy—it’s wishful thinking.” He noted that there is no modern precedent for forcing regime change by airpower alone. “Bombs can degrade infrastructure. They can weaken capabilities,” he said. “But they do not manufacture organized political alternatives.”
The U.S. and Israeli operations have reportedly targeted Iran’s leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and struck at least nine cities, from the northern mountains to the southern desert, and a port on the Persian Gulf. According to multiple news outlets, Israeli officials have said that Khamenei was killed. The war—dubbed Operation Epic Fury by the U.S. and Roaring Lion by Israel—has escalated quickly, sucking in seven other countries as Iran responded by firing on Israeli and American interests in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. U.S. officials have indicated that the war is likely to continue for days, even weeks. Trump acknowledged there may be American casualties as the conflict unfolds.
Recent polls have shown that Trump does not have broad support for this war, which arrives at a time when Americans are focussed most on their own economic woes. There are also growing questions about the war’s legality—whether it violates international laws, the U.N. Charter, or the U.S. Constitution. The founding document of the U.N. stipulates that its members “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” And the U.S. Constitution says that only Congress has the power to declare war. In a statement on Saturday, the Arms Control Association said that American lawmakers and other countries around the world “have a solemn moral and legal duty to oppose this rogue aggression.”
Smoke rises in the sky after blasts were heard in Manama, Bahrain, on Saturday.Photograph by stringer / Reuters
This war on Iran need not have happened—at least not now. As was the case in the run-up to the Twelve-Day War, in June, when the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear sites in Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan, the Trump Administration has been in the midst of diplomatic negotiations with the Islamic Republic. They were due to hold further talks, among their respective nuclear experts, early next week. Once again, diplomacy has been aborted in favor of violence. Just hours before the war erupted, the Omani Foreign Minister, Badr Albusaidi, who has been the intermediary in the negotiations, reported that “substantial progress” had been made toward a lasting and verifiable deal. “Really, I can see that the peace deal is within our reach,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
This is also a war that could have been avoided if Trump had not abandoned the hard-won nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or J.C.P.O.A., in 2018, during his first term, which had taken two years of intense negotiations by the Obama Administration. Trump’s subsequent campaign of maximum pressure, including the imposition of fifteen hundred new economic sanctions on Iran and its business partners, led Tehran to respond with its own maximum pressure. It escalated the enrichment of uranium, the fuel that can be used for a nuclear weapon—and for nuclear energy—to far higher than the limits set under the J.C.P.O.A., and created more advanced centrifuges to do that. On Saturday, Senator Tim Kaine, of Virginia, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said, “Has President Trump learned nothing from decades of U.S. meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East? Is he too mentally incapacitated to realize that we had a diplomatic agreement with Iran that was keeping its nuclear program in check, until he ripped it up during his first term?”
Trump recently claimed that a new nuclear deal could be reached if Iran only said the “magic words”—that it would not produce a nuclear weapon. Iran has used those magic words several times in recent years, including this past week. On Tuesday, the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, posted on X, “Our fundamental convictions are crystal clear: Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon; neither will we Iranians ever forgo our right to harness the dividends of peaceful nuclear technology for our people.” Under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which went into effect in 1970, Iran has the right to produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Like the war on Iraq, launched by the George W. Bush Administration in 2003, today’s war on Iran is based on a lie about weapons of mass destruction. This week, President Trump claimed that Tehran posed “imminent threats” to American soil. Washington is rightly concerned about Iran’s ballistic missiles, many hidden underground in so-called missile cities. Their longest range is two thousand kilometres, far enough to hit Israel and U.S. personnel or facilities across the Middle East. That is, indeed, deeply worrisome. But Iran has no ability to hit anywhere close to the United States.
Alan Eyre, a longtime Iran watcher at the State Department, now at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told me that Trump’s “stated objective for these attacks—imminent threat—is not believable, and his real objective—regime incapacitation if not regime change—is unlikely.” Operation Epic Fury, he went on, may not be able to destroy by air “the myriad interlinked institutions and infrastructures that constitute the basis of regime power. Even if that were to happen, it is even more unlikely there would be a spontaneous generation of new organic institutions that would underpin a viable alternative government. What is more likely once the guns stop is a degraded regime and an increasingly immiserated Iranian populace.” Eyre added that there’s no guarantee that the U.S. military can stifle an Iranian response, which could destabilize the region.
The war has triggered global alarm. The U.N. scheduled an emergency meeting for Saturday afternoon. Long-standing U.S. allies called for an end to the air campaign. On X, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, wrote that the “outbreak of war between the United States, Israel, and Iran carries grave consequences for international peace and security.” The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, said, “We cannot afford another prolonged and devastating war in the Middle East.” The Swiss government called for “full respect for international law.” In a joint statement, the top two leaders of the European Union urged against “any actions that could further escalate tensions or undermine the global nonproliferation regime.”
At home, many Democratic leaders and at least two Republicans challenged Trump’s decision—or right—to go to war. In a post on X, Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, said, “This is not ‘America First.’ ” Senator Rand Paul, another Kentucky Republican, quoted James Madison, a Founding Father and the fourth U.S. President, who said that the executive branch was “most prone to war,” which is why declaring it is a right reserved for Congress.
Others noted Iranian support for extremist movements, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, that have killed hundreds of Americans in the past four decades, and the thousands of Iranians the regime has killed in recent protests. “No one will be sad to see them go,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen, of New Hampshire, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noted. But she said that Trump “has shown a disappointingly cavalier approach towards the use of force, even when it risks the lives of the tens of thousands of U.S. service members and diplomats in the region as well as our allies and partners, who are already under attack.”
The President has still not outlined the U.S. exit strategy. Will it be after a hypothetical uprising has held elections and formed a new government? The Bush Administration tried that in Afghanistan in 2001, and in Iraq in 2003—and was stuck in each country for years, at the cost of thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars. Senator Andy Kim, of New Jersey, called Trump’s decision “foolish” for putting Americans in harm’s way without an imminent threat and putting Iranian dissidents in danger without a coalition to protect them. Trump has talked about both a limited mission against Iran and, overnight, a “massive” operation. The specifics of his calculations remain unclear—to other elected officials as well as to the rest of us. ♦“
Anthropic was right not to trust Pete Hegseth
Anthropic was right not to trust Pete Hegseth
"The AI company's redlines asked very little of the Pentagon. Their rejection showed how little the Defense Department should be trusted with AI.
A battle of wills between Anthropic and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluded Friday with the AI company effectively banned from all federal government systems. It was something of a deus ex machina, courtesy of President Donald Trump, to a moral standoff over how the Pentagon could use Anthropic model, Claude. Hegseth’s hardline stance — and Trump’s dudgeon over being challenged — showcase how right CEO Dario Amodei was to try to put (some) limits on the way his company’s technology was deployed.
Anthropic first won a major $200 million contract with the Defense Department last year, granting access to the company’s AI models and allowing them to be deployed on work involving classified material. But Anthropic, which was founded over concerns about the lack of safeguards at other AI startups like OpenAI, is one of the few companies in the AI space calling for more federal regulation over the emerging technology. It’s telling then that OpenAI swooped in soon after Anthropic’s unceremonious dumping to fill the vacuum, despite pledging to (somehow) prevent the Pentagon from abusing its technology.
Amodei soon found himself defending his company from claims that it is building “woke AI,” as White House AI czar David Sacks put it last year, and at odds with an executive order demanding that AI models used by the federal government be “free from ideological bias.” But the tensions between the Pentagon and Anthropic really exploded after Amodei published an essay in January listing his concerns about how AI could be used by governments:
“There need to be limits to what we allow our governments to do with AI, so that they don’t seize power or repress their own people. The formulation I have come up with is that we should use AI for national defense in all ways except those which would make us more like our autocratic adversaries.”
In brief, Amodei named two major redlines for Claude’s use: conducting mass surveillance domestically and developing autonomous weapons — or weapons that don’t need a human to operate them. The Pentagon says it doesn’t intend to do either of those things — but also won’t let someone else say that it can’t. Defense officials have said that Anthropic must instead accept that its services can be used “for all lawful purposes” regardless of what the terms and conditions of its contract say. Hegseth likewise said last month at SpaceX headquarters, the Pentagon will not “employ AI models that won’t allow you to fight wars.”
The extremely heated rhetoric from the Pentagon towards Anthropic over the last week was well outside the norm. Hegseth warned Amodei in a meeting Tuesday that without granting carte blanche access to Claude, that the administration could invoke the Defense Production Act or label the company a “supply-chain risk” on par with foreign companies. Both are wild threats to make against an American company, particularly one already integrated into the DOD’s systems. And Amodei rightly pointed out in a statement on Thursday that the two threats are “are inherently contradictory: one labels us a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security.”
Despite Hegseth’s warnings, Amodei concluded in his statement “we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.” However, before Hegseth’s 5 p.m. Friday deadline could be hit, Trump came out on TruthSocial to declare that over the next six months every federal agency will immediately cease use of Anthropic’s technology. “We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump wrote, calling Anthropic a “out-of-control, Radical Left AI company.”
Hegseth soon thereafter made good on his promise, writing on X that he’d instructed his department to name the company a “Supply-Chain Risk to National Security,” effectively making it persona non grata for the Defense Department and its suppliers.
The Pentagon’s inability to accept constraints isn’t necessarily unique to Trump or Hegseth. The defense community has pushed back hard against anything seen as a constraint on potential actions under GOP and Democratic administrations alike. History is littered with examples, from America’s refusal to join the International Criminal Courtto rejecting the international treaty banning land mines. Whether or not the Pentagon intends to use Claude in the ways Anthropic rejects is in many ways secondary to the idea that the military would accept guardrails on its actions from outside the chain of command.
At the same time, calling out Hegseth and the Pentagon is not intended to be a sweeping defense of Anthropic or Claude’s generative AI model, much less the AI industry writ large. Let’s not forget that it was only recently that Anthropic softened its own internal safeguards on responsibly scaling up its models in order to better compete with other companies.
Meanwhile, the red lines set by Amodei sound weighty, but still allow the company’s AI to be deployed in any number of potentially lethal ways. One hypothetical example: sifting through reams of surveillance data to determine targets for the military strikes against alleged drug boats off the coast of South America. Whether or not any profile generated on the targets of these signature strikes is accurate isn’t at issue here, only whether a human drone operator is the one to pull the trigger.
It’s easy to cast Amodei as a champion for responsibility when Elon Musk’s Grok is already in the process of being granted access to the same classified systems as Claude. The AI chatbot from Musk’s xAI does little to hide the right-wing, archconservative view of the world it’s been programmed to espouse. But with Musk’s total capitulation to the DOD’s access requirements, there’s been no similar concerns from Hegseth or the White House about incorporating it into federal systems.
Given the competition’s amoral mindset towards products that have the potential to cause massive harm, the bar for assessing Anthropic’s self-regulation is so low as to truly be in hell. It means the Trumpist charges that Claude is somehow “woke AI” are both an overblown attack and an unearned badge of honor.
As with almost every major technological leap, America’s laws are deeply lagging when it comes to policing the rapid growth of AI. Without real safeguards and regulations, there’s little stopping the Pentagon from blacklisting a company that dares draw the line at having Americans’ data siphoned up rather than foreigners’, or at having a robot being the one pulling the trigger."
Satellite images show damage from US strikes on Iran’s Fordow nuclear site | Interactive News | Al Jazeera
Why are the US and Israel attacking Iran? What we know so far
"The US and Israel have bombed multiple Iranian cities, including capital Tehran. Iran hits back, launching missiles at Israel, and US bases.
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.
Iran has struck back with missiles aimed at northern Israel and at US military bases in the Middle East. Details of casualties and damage in Iran and Israel are sparse at the moment.
Here’s what we know so far:
What happened in Iran?
At about 9:27am (06:27 GMT), Iran’s Fars news agency reported a series of explosions in the capital, Tehran.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent in western Tehran said he heard two explosions, while videos shared on social media showed smoke rising from several parts of the city.
Israel first announced that it had launched missile strikes on targets inside Iran.
A US official told Al Jazeera that the strikes were carried out as part of a joint military operation with Israel. In recent weeks, Washington has assembled a large fleet of fighter jets and warships in the region, its most significant military buildup there since the Iraq War.
Trump described the operation as “massive and ongoing”.
The US Department of Defense later said the mission was named “Operation Epic Fury”, in the first public statement from the US military since the start of the joint US-Israeli attack.
Where in Iran have the US and Israel attacked?
Several missiles struck University Street and the Jomhouri area in Tehran, and close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters, Fars reported.
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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 Trump say?
While announcing “major combat operations”, Trump said 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.
Here are the key points of his message:
- The US has begun major combat operations in Iran, describing them as “massive and ongoing”.
- The stated aim is to eliminate what Washington calls imminent threats from the Iranian government.
Trump said the campaign’s military objectives include:
- Destroying Iran’s missile capabilities.
- Target Iran’s navy.
- Disrupting Iran-backed armed groups in the region.
- Making sure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.
He also laid out a warning-cum-offer to Iran’s military personnel. If they laid down their weapons, Trump said, he would ensure they had amnesty. But if they did not, he warned, they would face “certain death”. He acknowledged US forces could face casualties.
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,” Fisher 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.”
How are the US and Israel justifying their attack on Iran?
US and Israeli attacks on Iran follow years of confrontation over Tehran’s nuclear programme and regional influence.
The two allies have long claimed that Iran’s advancing enrichment activities and missile capabilities pose a threat to them, and they have repeatedly warned that they could use force against Tehran. Iran has publicly committed — repeatedly — that it has no intention of building a nuclear bomb. Israel is the only Middle Eastern nation to have nuclear weapons.
In June last year, Israel and the US attacked Iranian nuclear and military sites, assassinating several senior commanders.
The current escalation began after Omani mediators announced progress in Geneva negotiations, where Iran had reportedly agreed to zero uranium stockpiling and full verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Both the US and Israel have also argued that this is an opportunity for Iranians to “take over” the government.
“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations,” Trump said.
What is Iran’s response?
Iran retaliated by first launching missiles towards Israel, according to the Israeli military. Air-raid sirens sounded in several parts of the country, and explosions were reported in northern Israel.
“The public is requested to follow the instructions of the Home Front Command,” Israel’s military said in a statement. “At this time, the Israeli Air Force is operating to intercept and strike threats where necessary to remove the threat.”
But soon after, Iranian forces launched missiles at several locations linked to US military operations across the region, including:
- Al Udeid airbase in Qatar.
- Al-Salem airbase in Kuwait.
- Al-Dhafra airbase in the United Arab Emirates.
- The US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.
- Explosions were also heard in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- US bases were also reportedly attacked in Jordan
Earlier, Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, threatened a “crushing” response. “We warned you!” Azizi wrote on social media. “Now you have started down a path whose end is no longer in your control.”
What did Israel’s Netanyahu say?
In a statement, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the military operation “will continue as long as necessary.” He said the Israeli operation was called “Lion’s Roar”.
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.
How has the world reacted?
- Oman: Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said that active and serious negotiations mediated by his country between Iran and the US were “yet again undermined” amid the ongoing escalation, and urged the US “not to get sucked in further”.
- Qatar condemned the Iranian attack, describing it as “a flagrant violation of its national sovereignty,” while adding that the country reserves the right of response in according with international law.
- The United Arab Emirates condemned the Iranian missile attacks that reportedly killed a Pakistani national earlier, warning of “grave consequences” if such violations continue.
- European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas described the situation as “perilous” and called for civilians to be protected and international law to be upheld.
- French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the conflict involving the US, Israel and Iran carries “grave consequences for international peace and security”, adding, “The current escalation is dangerous for everyone. It must stop.”
- In Russia, Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev criticised Trump, accusing Washington of using negotiations with Iran as a “cover operation” and questioning how the confrontation would unfold in the long term.
- The UK said that Iran must never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons and stood ready to defend its interests.
- Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney said the country supports US efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and from further threatening international peace and security."
US and Israel launch major attack on Iran as Tehran retaliates across the Middle East – live
Strikes reported across Middle East after US and Israel launch war on Iran
"Tehran carries out extensive retaliatory strikes on Israel and US air bases as region is plunged into new conflict
Israel and the US have launched a war on Iran, unleashing waves of air attacks across the country in an attempt to bring about regime change and plunging the region into a new conflict that could last weeks or months.
The sudden offensive triggered Iranian retaliatory strikes throughout the day across a swathe of the Middle East, with explosions reported in Israel, Bahrain, Syria, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
In a televised address, Donald Trump claimed Operation Epic Fury would end a security threat to the US and give Iranians a chance to “rise up” against their rulers. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the joint attack “will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands” and “remove the yoke of tyranny”.
Iranian officials said they had not been surprised by the US attacks and that the consequences would “be long lasting and extensive. All scenarios were on the table including ones that were not previously considered.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened all US bases and interests in the region and said Iran’s retaliation would continue until “the enemy is decisively defeated”.
The first wave of Israeli and US strikes early on Saturday morning targeted senior Iranian officials as well as air defence systems, Israeli military officials said, adding that the offensive would continue as long as necessary to make a change that would last “for years to come”. Satellite images showed extensive damage at the secure compound of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, though his whereabouts remains unclear.
Analysts have repeatedly warned in recent weeks that an open-ended US or Israeli military offensive against Iran risked massive regional destabilisation and could bring chaos and violence across much of the Middle East.
Experts cautioned that the unfolding campaign, arguably the most ambitious US effort to alter political realities in the region since the 2003 Iraq war, would have grave economic and political consequences for the region and the world.
The strikes could rattle global markets, particularly if Iran is able to make the Strait of Hormuz unsafe for commercial traffic. A third of worldwide oil exports transported by sea passed through the strait in 2025.
The UN security council called a rare emergency meeting on Saturday to address “the situation in the Middle East”. It was due to start at 4pm (21.00 GMT). Dozens of countries issued statements calling for an immediate de-escalation.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said in a statement: “The escalation under way is dangerous for everyone. It must stop … The outbreak of war among the United States, Israel and Iran has serious consequences for peace and international security.”
In Iran, there were reports of dozens of explosions across the country including in Tehran. Iranian state media said dozens of pupils had been killed at a primary school in southern Iran.
In response, Iran launched waves of attacks at Israel throughout the day, prompting repeated alerts to Israelis to head for bomb shelters. Two minor injuries were reported, suggesting that most, if not all, incoming projectiles were successfully intercepted by air defence systems or stopped by Israel’s regional allies before reaching Israeli airspace.
Outside Israel, Iran’s retaliatory strikes appear to have focused primarily on US militarybases across the Middle East, though some other targets appeared to have been hit. There were reports of attacks in Abu Dhabi, Manama in Bahrain, and near Erbil in northern Iraq.
Experts said Tehran had many other options for retaliation, including cyber-warfare and the use of militant groups it has long supported, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen.
The US-Israeli offensive had been planned for months and involved close cooperation, Israeli military officials said, adding that 70,000 Israeli reservists had been called up, mainly air defence personnel.
The attack began hours after Trump said he was “not happy” about the latest negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme. On Thursday, diplomats from Oman mediated indirect talks between Iran and the US in Geneva and further technical negotiations were due to take place on Tuesday.
Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, who has been leading the negotiations, said on X: “Active and serious negotiations have yet again been undermined.” He was referring to similar Israeli-US attacks during nuclear negotiations last year..
“Neither the interests of the United States nor the cause of global peace are well served by this,” he said. “And I pray for the innocents who will suffer. I urge the United States not to get sucked in further.”
Oman called on Saturday for all parties to stop fighting, warning of the danger of the conflict escalating into something with “dire consequences for the region”.
The US had built up a large military presence in the region in recent weeks in preparation for an attack, including two aircraft carrier strike groups.
Trump, who repeatedly said he preferred a diplomatic solution to the crisis, told Iranians the “hour of your freedom is at hand”, urging them to rise up and “take over your government” in a video on his Truth Social platform. He offered the Iranian military “immunity” should they surrender, or “certain death” if not.
Israel directly addressed Iranians in a Persian-language post on a dedicated Telegram channel.
“Our Iranian brothers and sisters, you are not alone!” the post said, calling on Iranians to upload photos and video of anti-regime protests. “Together we will return Iran to its glorious days.”
An Israeli official said the supreme leader and Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, were targeted but that the result of the strikes was not clear.
Israeli military officials and an Iranian source close to the establishment said that several political officials and senior commanders in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had been killed.
Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE and Israel have all closed their airspace, and international airlines have cancelled hundreds of flights to or around the region.
The strikes create a dilemma for many allies of the US. While European leaders firmly oppose Iran’s nuclear programme and crackdowns by its hardline theocracy, they are loath to embrace unilateral military action by Trump that could breach international law and lead to a broader conflict.
It was unclear whether US allies were given any advance warning of the attacks. The German government said it was only given notice on Saturday morning, while France’s junior defence minister said France knew something would happen, but not when.
Macron called on Iran’s leadership to commit to negotiations on its nuclear and ballistic programmes.
“The Iranian people should also be able to build their future freely,” he said. “The massacres perpetrated by the Islamic regime disqualify it, and necessitate that the people be given a voice.”
A UK government spokesperson reiterated Britain’s support for a negotiated solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“We do not want to see further escalation into a wider regional conflict,” they said.
Iranian state television reported that Pezeshkian was “safe and sound”, while the Fars news agency said seven “missile impacts” were reported in the Keshvardoost and Pasteur districts of Tehran.
The strikes come weeks after Iranian authorities killed thousands of people in a crackdown on mass protests, according to rights groups. Trump then promised to intervene to support protesters and ordered the buildup of US forces around Iran."
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