As the US and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday morning, Iranian media reported explosions across the capital Tehran.
In an eight-minute video message shared on TruthSocial, President Donald Trump said US forces had launched “major combat operations in Iran”.
“Our mission is to protect the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” he said.
A spokesman for Israel’s defense ministry previously said it had “launched a pre-emptive strike against Iran to eliminate threats against the State of Israel”.
A spokesperson said retaliation is expected.
“As a result, missile and UAV attacks against the State of Israel and its civilian population are expected in the immediate time frame,” an Israeli spokesman said.
Two US officials told NBC News that the strikes in Iran were significant and not minor strikes.
Iran’s airspace was closed early Saturday morning, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, as smoke billowed over buildings in Tehran.
The strikes come after Trump oversaw a massive military build-up in the Middle East while negotiating with Tehran to agree a new deal to curtail Iran’s nuclear program.
“It’s always been the policy of the United States, particularly my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I’ll say it again, they can never have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said in his video on Saturday.
Iran vowed before the attack that it would retaliate against any attack, threatening to target Israel and American bases across the region.
Other Middle Eastern countries have warned that any attack on the territory, which is still reeling from the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, could turn into another major conflict.
Trump raised the prospect of another attack on Iran after authorities cracked down on massive nationwide demonstrations that erupted in December and January over the country’s fragile economy but turned into demands to topple the clerical regime.
Trump wrote Satya Social: “Keep protesting – take your institutions!!! Save the names of murderers and abusers.” Then he added: “Help is on its way.”
The regime crushed the protests, killing thousands and arresting tens of thousands in the weeks that followed.
Trump later threatened a military strike if he could not reach a deal with Tehran over its nuclear program – something the president said the US “wiped out” with strikes in June. A subsequent US assessment found that only one of the three sites targeted had been destroyed.
More recently, the administration said Iran was trying to rebuild its nuclear program and could have enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb “within a week” and that its ballistic missiles would be able to hit the US “soon.”
There is no publicly available evidence that Iran has made major progress in reviving its damaged nuclear program. The Trump administration has not specifically accused Iran of renewing its uranium enrichment program.
Iran, which has always insisted it has not pursued nuclear weapons, has resisted demands to halt uranium enrichment or expand talks to include support for its ballistic missile program and proxy forces across the Middle East.
At the same time as negotiating with Iran, the U.S. massed forces and built up its air defenses at bases across the region.
Trump on the USS Gerald R. Ford sent the world’s largest aircraft carrier, which he called the “Armada”.
Iran has already signed a nuclear deal with the US and other world powers. Supporters saw the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, as a landmark agreement that provided transparency and confidence internationally that Tehran was not building nuclear weapons.
Trump and other critics saw the deal as weak, and claimed it would delay Iran getting a bomb. In 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the agreement.
