Trump’s Bold Move: Vows to Overthrow Iran’s Regime While Israel Allies in Strategic Offensive

President Donald Trump has pledged to dismantle Iran’s Islamic leadership, initiating a coordinated missile offensive alongside Israel.

Trump cautioned that the campaign might lead to ‘US casualties,’ emphasizing that the mission seeks to protect American citizens by neutralizing pressing threats posed by the Iranian government.

This initial attack, marking the peak of increasing hostilities between the nations, was executed close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s headquarters.

Authorities have reported that the 86-year-old leader, unseen in public for several days, has been relocated to a secure site outside Tehran.

In retaliation, Iran vowed a ‘crushing response,’ with explosions reported in northern Israel shortly after 8 a.m. on Saturday morning.

The Israeli military said it had identified ballistic missiles launched from Iran towards Israel, with defensive systems operating to ‘intercept the threat’.

Strikes have also been reported across Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi sparking fears the Middle East may now be on the brink of all out war.

In Bahrain, officials confirmed that the headquarters of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet had been targeted by a missile attack.  

People watch as smoke rises on the skyline after an explosion in Tehran, Iran

A vehicle explodes into flames after the US carried out strikes on Iran 

President Trump announced on Saturday morning the United States had begun ‘major combat operations’ in Iran with thick black smoke seen rising into the sky

An image shows smoke billowing from a building after an explosion in Tehran, Iran, on Saturday morning

A man looks on as a plume of smoke rises following a reported explosion in Tehran 

President Trump announced today the United States had begun ‘major combat operations’ in Iran with explosions heard in five cities across the country. 

In a video posted to Truth Social, he claimed Iran had continued to expand its nuclear programme and has plans to develop missiles to reach the US. 

The operation in the Middle East has been dubbed ‘Epic Fury’ by the US Department of Defence, which Trump has renamed the Department of War. 

‘We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground, it will be totally, again, obliterated,’ Trump said in his announcement. 

‘We’re going to annihilate their navy, we’re going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilise the region or the world and attack our forces, and no longer use their IEDs or roadside bombs as they are sometimes called, to gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans.

‘And we will ensure that Iran does not attain a nuclear weapon – a very simple message: They will never have a nuclear weapon.’

A former UK national security adviser said the US and Israeli strikes against Iran were not ‘legal in a way that the UK would recognise’.

Lord Peter Ricketts told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘None of this, I think, is in any sense legal in a way that the UK would recognise.

‘There was really no imminent threat to the US. This is action that they chose to undertake, or were dragged into it by the Israelis.’

In Tehran, witnesses heard the first blast by Mr Khamenei’s office on Saturday morning. Iranian state television later reported the explosion, without offering a cause.

There have also been unverified reports of explosions in other locations across Iran including Isfahan, the third biggest city, and Tabriz. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the joint attack with the US aimed to ‘remove an existential threat posed’ by Iran. 

People run for cover following explosions in Tehran on Saturday 

Israel Katz, the Israeli Defense Minister, announced that the country is under a state of emergency as thick smoke rose from an explosion in downtown Tehran (pictured)

Israelis run for cover after Iran unleashed retaliatory strikes in the country 

More explosions struck Iran’s capital after Israel said it was attacking the country. Authorities have offered no casualty information from the strikes

Hospital staff move patients in a parking lot at Sourasky Medical Center for safety after sirens sounded in Tel Aviv

This week Trump made the grave warning that Iran is manufacturing weapons that could soon strike US

More explosions struck Iran’s capital after Israel said it was attacking the country. Authorities have offered no casualty information from the strikes.

Meanwhile, Iran shut down its air space and mobile phone services were cut.

Israel has warned its own citizens to prepare to take cover if the Iranians fight back, with sirens already being heard across Israel.

The country’s Defense Force said: ‘This is a proactive alert to prepare the public for the possibility of missiles being launched toward the State of Israel.’ 

Airspace above Israel was closed to civilian flights following the strike this morning.

The explosions come as tensions are high between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s nuclear programme. 

This week Trump made the grave warning that Iran is manufacturing weapons that could soon strike US.

Tehran is ‘working on missiles that will soon reach’ America, Trump said during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. 

He also vowed to prevent Iran, the ‘number one sponsor of terrorism,’ from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Trump has openly flirted with regime change too, telling reporters recently that the ousting of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ‘would be the best thing that could happen.’

But US intelligence reports have not yet concluded that Iran is capable of crafting a weapon capable of reaching the homeland.

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessed last year that Iran could need until 2035 to create a ‘militarily viable’ intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) – the kind that travels thousands of miles, including, for a time, through space before the warhead plummets towards its target.

‘Iran has space launch vehicles it could use to develop a militarily-viable ICBM by 2035 should Tehran decide to pursue the capability,’ the DIA report states.

Smoke rises over residential area after an explosion in Tehran, Iran

A woman runs for cover following an explosion in Tehran

The explosions come as tensions are high between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s nuclear programme

Two aircraft carrier strike groups – representing around 15,000 soldiers, over a dozen ships, hundreds of planes and likely some submarines – are being used by Trump to get Iran to capitulate to his denuclearization demands.

In addition, many thousands of troops and scores of military assets are on bases throughout the region, though there are some reports of evacuations.

The stalemate has recently shown some signs of traction with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, with chief Iran negotiator Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, Oman’s foreign minister. 

Additional meetings were scheduled for Friday. 

The heated tensions this year come just months after Operation Midnight Hammer – one of the most sophisticated military aviation successes in recent American history.

Last June, Trump’s B-2 Stealth Bombers were flown to Iran in a 37-hour secret mission to quell the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear capabilities. 

Two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles hit Iran in the operation.

Their purpose was to neutralize Iranian defense systems protecting nuclear enrichment facilities at Isfahan. When these sites had been destroyed, the B-2 group entered Iranian airspace.

The stealth jet squadron slipped into enemy skies, moving into attack formation at ‘high altitude and high speed’, with lighter, more mobile F-22 fighter jets sweeping in front of the B-2s to shield them from any surface-to-air or air-to-air fire.

There was none. Not a single shot was fired at any of the aircraft or warships involved in Midnight Hammer from the beginning of the operation to its end.