The United States and Israel launched a sweeping attack on the Iranian regime early Saturday morning, targeting senior Islamic Republic officials in a wide-scale operation aimed at toppling the hardline regime and destroying its military capabilities.
Trump addressed the Iranian people as missiles flew over Tehran as part of “Operation Epic Fury.” He urged them to topple the regime that last month slaughtered tens of thousands of protesters.
“Bombs will be dropping everywhere,” Trump said in a video first posted to Truth Social. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
The military operation is expected to last for several days and reach well beyond Iran’s contested nuclear sites, which were razed last June during a targeted U.S. strike. This time around, Trump is targeting regime outposts across the country, including Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s fortified compound in Tehran. The United States and Israel are focused first on hitting “as many leaders as possible” before expanding the operation to other military centers across Iran, the New York Times reported.
Explosions rocked the country just as its work week began. They were initially reported in several major Iranian cities, stretching from Qom to Kermanshah, Isfahan, and Karaj. “Thick smoke” was spotted rising across Tehran in areas that house the presidential palace and Iran’s National Security Council, according to the Times. Bombs also fell on the Iranian parliament, national supreme council, ministry of intelligence, and atomic energy agency, according to Fox News. A barrage of cyber attacks, meanwhile, blacked out the country’s state-controlled media outlets, including the regime-favored Islamic Republic News Agency.
The initial wave of strikes reportedly targeted senior Iranian military leaders, including the chief of its army, Amir Hatami. Israeli forces also went after Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Mohammad Pakpour, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, defense minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, intelligence chief Majid Khademi, and, most notably, Khamenei himself. Both Nasirzadeh and Pakpour were likely killed, according to Reuters, though information from inside Iran is at a standstill amid an internet blackout.
“This murderous terrorist regime must not be allowed to arm itself with nuclear weapons that would enable it to threaten all of humanity,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement early Saturday. “Our joint operation will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands.”
Videos circulating on social media showed some Iranian citizens dancing and celebrating as munitions fell around them.
“They hit them!! How do you feel?” one videographer asked a small crowd of smiling teens.
“Amazing,” the boy responded, as smoke could be seen rising in the distance.
Elsewhere in Tehran, citizens were heard chanting, “Freedom, freedom.”
“For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it,” Trump said in his Saturday video address. “No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond.”
Iran responded to the salvo by firing several waves of ballistic missiles at Israel and at U.S. military bases in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait. No American casualties have been reported thus far, though the UAE reported one death from falling debris. Large portions of the Israeli population are huddling in bomb shelters as the attacks from Iran intensify.
Exiled Iranian opposition leader Reza Pahlavi urged his supporters inside Iran to “finish this task in this final battle” by toppling the hardline clerical regime.
“This is a humanitarian intervention, and its target is the Islamic Republic, its apparatus of repression, and its machinery of killing—not the country and great nation of Iran,” Pahlavi wrote in X. “The final victory will still be achieved by us.”
The unprecedented U.S. military intervention kneecapped an Iranian regime already weakened by a protest movement that blossomed from a small revolt by shopkeepers into a full-blown uprising. Trump repeatedly warned the regime against killing protesters, threatening U.S. intervention that never came. The Islamic Republic killed upwards of 30,000 civilians during that time, and its officials repeatedly mocked Trump’s military warnings.
It is the second time in just over a year that Trump made good on his threat to attack Tehran. His June strikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons sites, carried out alongside Israel, crippled the country’s air defenses and left the hardline regime more exposed than it has been in decades. The operation not only set the tactical stage for Trump’s latest offensive but helped empower an Iranian population long dissatisfied with its theocratic rulers.
The United States moved a large array of military assets that included two aircraft carriers and more than 50 fighter jets into the Middle East in preparation for the attack in the largest buildup in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The first wave of ships began moving into the region as the Iranian regime brutally suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations. More followed as nuclear talks between the United States and Iran began in February.
Prior to the U.S.-Israeli operation, satellite imagery showed Iran rebuilding and fortifying two of its most secretive nuclear facilities, hoping to prevent further harm to the country’s uranium enrichment capabilities. The activity around those sites in Isfahan and Parchin, according to non-proliferation excerpts, suggested Tehran was buying time in talks while preparing for a military encounter.
The diplomatic sessions were also met with threats by Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who promised to send American warships “to the bottom of the sea.”
Netanyahu, meanwhile, traveled to Washington, D.C., in early February to present his own views on an acceptable deal, a trip that drew pitched warnings from Tehran. Secretary of State Marco Rubio predicted diplomacy would fail earlier this month, saying, “I’m not sure you can reach a deal with these guys, but we’re going to try to find out.”
While negotiators attempted to work out an acceptable framework during three rounds of indirect talks this month, Iran repeatedly stymied progress by refusing to stop enriching uranium or discuss its ballistic missile program.
Throughout the months-long standoff, regime officials mocked Trump, while state television outlets ran messages calling for the president’s assassination. One image featured a sign reading, “This time, the bullet won’t miss,” referring to the 2024 attempt on Trump’s life in Pennsylvania. Iranian foreign minister Abbas Aragchi, meanwhile, warned Trump, “Don’t make the same mistake you made in June. You failed in June, and you’ll get the same result.”
Senior Iranian military leaders also boasted about the Islamic Republic’s offensive prowess as the diplomatic talks played out, though Tehran’s defense proved incapable of warding off American forces on Saturday. Major General Amir Hatami, the Iranian army’s commander in chief, vowed in mid-February that an attack would “be met with a response unprecedented in scale and experience.” The commander of Iran’s Army Air Force, Bahman Behmard, said his troops “are ready to face any level of threat.”
As protests raged earlier this year, Trump himself emerged as the most vocal supporter of a military strike against the regime.
“A massive Armada is heading to Iran,” Trump wrote in a late January post on Truth Social, foreshadowing a military operation that became reality just weeks later. “It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose.”
Diplomatic talks, Trump warned, would not last indefinitely: “As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”
