The U.S. and Israel launched sweeping airstrikes against Iran on Saturday in a military operation that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader for nearly 37 years.
“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” President Donald Trump announced in a lengthy statement posted on social media. “This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS.”
Iranian state media later confirmed Khamenei’s death.
Trump announced the airstrikes early Saturday morning, which targeted Iran’s capital city of Tehran and other areas of the country during a daylight attack on the first day of Iran’s workweek.
Iran responded to the U.S.-Israel military offensive by firing retaliatory missile strikes on Israel and against American bases and other targets in the Middle East region.
Strikes were reported in Dubai and Kuwait. Officials from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, where the U.S. has military bases, said separately that missiles were intercepted in their airspace
U.S. Central Command said the U.S. has so far fended off “hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks,” and that there are no reports of casualties or combat-related injuries among U.S. forces, with minimal damage to U.S. installations.
In a phone call with CBS News’ Robert Costa on Saturday evening, Trump said a diplomatic solution with Iran “easily” remains possible. When asked who’s running Iran following Khamenei’s death, Trump said, “I know exactly who, but I can’t tell you.”
More than 200 people in Iran have been killed by Israel-U.S. strikes, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, and Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that at least 57 students from a girls’ school in southern Iran were killed. Central Command spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins said in a statement that officials are looking into “reports concerning civilian harm resulting from ongoing military operations.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the U.S.-Israel strikes “the most lethal, most complex, and most-precision aerial operation in history.”
“We will not tolerate powerful missiles targeting the American people,” Hegseth stated Saturday in a post on X. “Those missiles will be destroyed, along with Iran’s missile production. The Iranian navy will be destroyed. And, as President Trump has said his entire life, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump announced the “major combat operations” in Iran in a Truth Social post early on Saturday, which he said was aimed at stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and protecting American personnel and interests abroad and at home.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the joint attack with the U.S. was aimed at ending “the threat of the Iranian ayatollah’s regime.”
Trump acknowledged there may be American casualties as a result of the U.S. military intervention labeled “Operation Epic Fury,” but said the mission was necessary to protect America and its allies in the future.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost, and we may have casualties. That often happens in war,” Trump stated. “We’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future and it is a noble mission.”
Trump told The Washington Free Beacon later on Saturday that he believed the operation was “going very well” and that he felt “fine” following the strikes against Iran.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, denounced the attack as “wholly unprovoked, illegal, and illegitimate.”
This is the eighth military intervention of Trump’s second term in office and runs counter to his campaign promise to end costly foreign wars. The president set broad goals in his video address and called for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Iranian military forces to lay down their arms, making clear this was not a limited U.S. attack. Indeed, he called it “massive” in the video statement.
“We will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon…this regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces,” Trump said.
The country’s foreign ministry claimed the U.S. and Israel had targeted “defensive and civilian facilities” and that the offensive occurred while Iran was “engaged in a diplomatic process” with the United States.
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen announced that they would resume strikes on shipping in the Red Sea, which drove up shipping prices in the past.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported that the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply passes, has closed amid strikes. Only 21 miles wide at one point, the strait’s closure, or the limiting of oil tankers passing through it, could increase oil prices globally.
Trump pointed to the on-again-off-again nature of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear operations, and said the government had “rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions.” He stated the country had attempted to rebuild its nuclear industry following U.S. attacks on its nuclear facilities in Operation Midnight Hammer.
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“We can’t take it anymore,” Trump said, warning that Iran was continuing to build long-range missiles that could not only threaten U.S. allies in Europe but “could soon reach” U.S. shores.
The attack caught diplomats who had been involved in negotiations over the past several weeks off guard.
“I am dismayed,” Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi said Saturday, after just a day earlier expressing optimism that the talks he had mediated between the U.S. and Iran had made significant progress. “Active and serious negotiations have yet again been undermined. Neither the interests of the United States nor the cause of global peace are well served by this. And I pray for the innocents who will suffer. I urge the United States not to get sucked in further. This is not your war.”
Trump called on the Iranian people to take action, describing the U.S. military offensive as “their moment for action” and “probably your only chance to act for generations.” The operation comes in the wake of a brutal crackdown by the Iranian regime on civilians after nationwide protests against the government.
“Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take,” Trump declared.
Democrats condemned Trump’s unilateral decision to attack Iran without consulting the American public, lawmakers or seeking congressional authorization. “The president owes the country clear answers: What is the objective? What is the strategy to prevent escalation? And how does this make Americans safer?” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement Saturday, noting that Trump himself acknowledged that “American heroes may be lost.”
“That alone should have demanded the highest level of scrutiny, deliberation, and accountability, yet the president moved forward without seeking congressional authorization,” Warner said.
But Warner was among members of the so-called Gang of Eight congressional leaders from both parties who were contacted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the hours before the strikes, according to multiple sources familiar with the calls. Rubio was unable to reach at least one of the leaders who did not answer the call, but he spoke to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford, R-Ark., and Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking member on that panel.
Rubio also consulted the Gang of Eight during an hourlong briefing on Tuesday, one U.S. official said.
Still, key congressional members were outraged by the action, including Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., sponsor of a War Powers Resolution that had been set for a vote this week aimed at reigning in the administration’s ability to undertake such actions.
“Has President Trump learned nothing from decades of U.S. meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East?” Kaine said in a statement Saturday morning. “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 and Khamenei had each threatened the other with military action in recent weeks. Trump had called for regime change and signaled plans for a second direct attack on the Islamic Republic to be carried out by what the president promised would be a “massive armada.”
Trump had repeatedly and publicly urged Iran to accept his terms for a nuclear weapons agreement and threatened retaliation if it did not. At the first meeting of his new “Board of Peace,” Trump warned “bad things will happen” if Iran did not agree to a nuclear program deal.
The U.S. government issued a security alert on Jan. 12, directing Americans to leave Iran by land immediately on the heels of the government’s bloody crackdown on demonstrators amid a worsening economic crisis. Several foreign embassies in Tehran, including the British embassy, have since temporarily closed or reduced operations.
Ian Sherwood contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
David Rohde
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
Erum Salam is breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian and is a graduate of Texas A&M University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Follow her on X, Bluesky and Instagram.
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