TEHRAN/ JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON: The United States and Israel have said there are signs that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several top Iranian officials were killed in their joint strikes on Iran on Saturday; however, Iranian state news agencies Tasnim and Mehr reported that Khamenei remains “steadfast and firm in commanding the field”. President Donald Trump told NBC News in an interview on Saturday that he believes reports of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death are correct. “We feel that that is a correct story,” Trump told NBC News in a phone interview, according to a report on its website.
Khamenei’s body has been found, a senior Israeli official told Reuters. Iranian news agencies Tasnim and Mehr, however, reported that the supreme leader was “steadfast and firm in commanding the field.” While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also claimed that there were many signs indicating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is no longer”, without explicitly confirming his death. A senior Israeli official told Reuters Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in Israeli and US strikes. There was no immediate Iranian confirmation of his fate.
The US and Israel launched an attack of unprecedented scale against Iran on Saturday, reportedly killing more than 200 people, with Tehran launching a retaliatory missile barrage that sent people running for cover across the Middle East.
The UAE reported one civilian dead and damage from missiles in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as blasts from Tehran’s retaliatory salvo and air defences intercepting it also echoed over Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Kuwait.
Supreme Leader Khamenei’s son-in-law and daughter-in-law, as well as Iran’s Defence Minister Amir Nasirzadeh and Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammed Pakpour were reported killed in the attacks.
President Donald Trump said the strikes were aimed at ending a security threat and ensuring Iran could not develop a nuclear weapon.
He called on Iranian security forces to lay down their weapons and invited Iranians to topple their government once the bombing ended.
Iranian authorities urged residents to evacuate the capital, a city of 10 million, while the country’s Red Crescent society said that in addition to the 201 dead, more than 700 people were wounded.
The Iranian judiciary said one attack that hit a school in the south killed 85 people, although AFP was unable to access the site in order to verify the toll.
In weeks of sabre-rattling leading up to the strikes, Tehran had repeatedly vowed to retaliate fiercely if attacked, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi argued on Saturday that US and Israeli installations involved in the operation were “legitimate targets”.
Iran´s Revolutionary Guards radioed ships to say the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway, was shut, according to the EU’s naval mission.
Plumes of black smoke hung over Tehran, including in the Pasteur district, home to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Israel´s public broadcaster, citing an Israeli source, reported Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian had been targeted. But Araghchi told NBC News that Khamenei was alive “as far as I know”, adding that “all high ranking officials are alive”.
Asked about Khamenei´s health, foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei told the BBC he was “not in a situation to confirm anything”, but “the whole system, the whole nation is focused on defending (our) national integrity”. An Israeli military official said several senior figures were “eliminated” in strikes on gatherings of Iranian officials.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late on Saturday that there were many signs indicating Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is no longer”, without explicitly confirming his death.
Netanyahu also said Khamenei’s compound had been destroyed, and Revolutionary Guard commanders and senior nuclear officials had ben destroyed.
The joint US-Israeli operation against Iran on Saturday involved the dropping of 30 bombs on the compound of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Israel’s Channel 12 network reported. “Thirty bombs were dropped on the complex. Ali Khamenei was underground, but probably not in his own bunker,” Channel 12’s Amit Segal, who is known to be close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said without giving a source.
Tehran residents had been going about their usual business when the strikes began. Security forces quickly flooded the streets, shops pulled down their shutters and few pedestrians risked venturing out, an AFP journalist saw.
The Red Crescent said 24 of Iran´s 31 provinces were affected by the strikes.
Pezeshkian decried the deadly attack on the girls´ school in the south as a “barbaric act”.
Across Israel, city streets stood deserted as residents took cover in shelters while the blasts of intercepted Iranian missiles reverberated overhead. Emergency services reported two people injured.
The attacks came after US President Donald Trump expressed frustration at Iran´s stance in negotiations over its nuclear and missile programmes.
Trump said Washington´s goal was “eliminating imminent threats” from Iran, while Israel´s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation was to remove an “existential threat”.
“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” Trump said. He also told Iranians the “hour of your freedom is at hand”, urging them to rise up and “take over your government”.
It was the first US military action of this scale apparently aimed at toppling a foreign government since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Netanyahu echoed Trump´s call, telling Iranians that the time had come to “cast off the yoke of tyranny”.
Israel´s army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said the operation was “taking place at a completely different scale” than the 12-day war it fought against Iran in June, which the US briefly joined.
“Since this morning, approximately 200 fighter jets... completed an extensive attack against the missile array and the defence systems of the Iranian terror regime in western and central Iran. This is the largest military air raid in the history of the Israeli Air Force,” a military statement said.
Iran´s Revolutionary Guards said their “missiles and drones have struck the headquarters of the US Navy´s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and other American bases in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as military and security centres in the heart of the occupied territories (Israel)”.
Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, the UAE and Israel all closed their airspaces to civilian traffic, at least in part, and multiple airlines cancelled flights to the Middle East.
Residents and AFP correspondents in the Emirati, Qatari and Bahraini capitals heard multiple rounds of explosions from Iran´s retaliatory strikes.
In Qatar, people fled in panic as a falling missile plunged into a residential neighbourhood, erupting in a fireball as it hit the street. And in Abu Dhabi, the UAE´s capital, golfers were stunned to see dozens of projectiles flying overhead.
In Bahrain´s capital Manama, residents were hurriedly evacuated from the Juffair district housing the US Navy´s Fifth Fleet.
Two witnesses told AFP they heard an explosion and saw a plume of smoke rising from Dubai´s famed man-made island The Palm, with authorities reporting four injured. According to reports the iconic Burj Khalifa, world’s tallest building, was evacuated by authorities as a precautionary measure as the administration advised people to stay inside and remain vigilant.
The foreign ministry of Oman, a mediator in recent US-Iran talks, called “on all parties to immediately cease military operations” and urged the UN Security Council to impose a ceasefire.
The UN Security Council was due to meet in New York on Saturday. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
The first wave of strikes in what the Pentagon named “OPERATION EPIC FURY” mainly targeted Iranian officials, a source familiar with the matter said.
An Israeli official said Khamenei and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian were both targeted.
An Iranian source close to the establishment said several senior commanders in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and political officials had been killed.
In a video message published on social media, Trump cited Washington’s decades-old dispute with Iran and Iranian attacks, dating to the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran during the 1979 Islamic revolution that brought the clerics to power.
Trump said the aim was “eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime”. He urged Iranians to stay sheltered because “bombs will be dropping everywhere”, but added: “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
Iran´s top security official vowed on Saturday to “teach an unforgettable lesson” to the United States and Israel. “We will make the Zionist criminals and the shameless Americans regret it,” Ali Larijani, head of Iran´s Supreme National Security Council, posted on X. “The brave soldiers and the great nation of Iran will teach an unforgettable lesson to the international oppressors.”
The United States urged its citizens around the world to excercise increased vigilance over potential impacts from the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran. “Following the launch of US combat operations in Iran, Americans worldwide and especially in the Middle East should follow the guidance in the latest security alerts issued by the nearest US embassy or consulate,” the State Department wrote on X.
It additionally advised “Americans worldwide to exercise increased caution.”
President Trump spoke with the head of Nato and leaders of three Middle Eastern countries including Saudi Arabia following the US and Israeli military strikes on Iran, the White House said. “President Trump has spoken with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X. The three nations host major US military bases on their soil.
The US attack on Iran and that country´s retaliation have caused no reported American casualties, the Pentagon said, adding that damage to US installations has been “minimal” despite a barrage of Iranian air assaults.
Following the initial US and Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic, “CENTCOM forces successfully defended against hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks,” the US Central Command, which launched the American operation at the orders of President Donald Trump, said in a statement.
“There have been no reports of US casualties or combat-related injuries. Damage to US installations was minimal and has not impacted operations.”
The US military said that it has been using single-use drones to attack Iran for the first time in combat, signaling adoption by the world´s wealthiest military of a technology surging to prominence in the Ukraine-Russia war. “Task Force Scorpion Strike employed low-cost one-way attack drones for the first time in combat,” US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement posted on X.
Iran called for an emergency meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog to discuss “baseless” US and Israeli claims that Tehran’s atomic programme partly justified their military action against it.
”In light of ongoing acts of aggression by the US and Israeli regimes... (Iran) called for an urgent extraordinary meeting” of the International Atomic Energy Agency´s board of governors, Iran´s mission to the Vienna-based agency said on X.
Several hundred people protested against the US-Israeli strikes on Iran near the US embassy in Baghdad on Saturday, AFP journalists said.
Republicans largely welcomed strikes launched by US forces and ally Israel against Iran but prominent Democrats condemned what they called an illegal aggression. “Today, Iran is facing the severe consequences of its evil actions,” including “terrorism,” the murder of Americans and the regime´s sustained nuclear ambitions, Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson said in a statement.
”We pray for the safety of our brave servicemembers and our allies involved in Operation Epic Fury,” the top Republican in Congress added. However, the top Democrat in the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, demanded a briefing to Congress by the Trump administration. “The American people do not want another endless and costly war in the Middle East when there are so many problems at home,” he said.
Dozens of motorbike-riding supporters of the Iranian government paraded on Saturday down a Tehran avenue playing martial music and waving the flag of the Islamic republic, AFP journalists reported. The convoy of around 50 people travelled along the long Valiasr Avenue, normally teeming but largely deserted on Saturday after US and Israeli strikes hit the Iranian capital. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was “deeply disturbed” by the Israeli-US attacks on Iran, but also condemned Tehran´s retaliatory strikes on the Gulf, demanding action to end the conflict. “We are deeply disturbed over the US-Israel attacks on our neighbour Iran,” he said in a televised address. Iran´s drone and missile attacks against the Gulf were “unacceptable”, he added, saying that all actors, “especially the Islamic world, must take action”.
