Explosions were heard in Tehran on Saturday night, with thick smoke seen rising over parts of the city.
Sirens also sounded across Israel, which declared a “special and immediate” state of emergency across the country.
This includes a prohibition on educational activities, gatherings, and workplaces, except for essential sectors.
Israel’s Channel 12 said the U.S. and Israel launched the attack jointly.
The strikes come amid diplomatic efforts between U.S. and Iranian officials for a deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
Badr Albusaidi, Oman’s foreign minister, who mediated the talks, met U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Friday.
“I am grateful for their engagement and look forward to further and decisive progress in the coming days.
“Peace is within our reach,” he wrote on U.S. social media company X after the meeting.(NAN/AA)
Trump Calls for Overthrowing of Government…
President Trump announced on Saturday that the United States had launched a major attack on Iran as he vowed to devastate the country’s military, eliminate its nuclear program and bring about a change in its government.
Massive explosions resounded in the Iranian capital, Tehran, while residents reported seeing smoke rising from the district where the presidential palace and the National Security Council are.
While President Trump recited a litany of Iranian attacks on American interests back to the hostage crisis during the Carter administration, he made little effort to argue that any immediate threat had prompted the latest U.S. and Israeli strikes. He repeated the allegation he made in the State of the Union address that Iran was working on missiles that could soon reach the United States, but the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded, in a 2025 report, that no decision had been made by the Iranian government to pursue an intercontinental ballistic missile. While Trump repeated that Iran could never be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons, he did not attempt to make the case that Iran was closer to producing one.
Videos verified by The New York Times show strikes in an area of Tehran that houses the presidential palace and Iran’s National Security Council, among other important government buildings. Another video shows a strike near Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence.
A central goal of the first joint wave of strikes in Iran was to hit as many leaders as possible, according to three Israeli security officials familiar with the operations.
The officials said that, similar to the previous strikes in June last year, planners took into account that they would manage to achieve at least some degree of surprise. They calculated that if they wanted to kill senior Iranian officials, they had to try and hit them in the first round of strikes. Afterward, it is highly likely that more precautions would be taken to protect the leadership.
