Israel launched a daylight missile attack on Iran on Saturday morning follows weeks of knife-edge tensions building up between Donald Trump and the Ayatollah.
Israel Katz, the Israeli Defense Minister, announcement that the country is under a state of emergency as thick smoke rose from an explosion in downtown Tehran.
Iranian state media reported explosions going off in their capital city. The apparent strike happened near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It is not immediately clear whether Khamenei, 86, had been in his offices at the time.
The Iranian leader has not been seen publicly in days, all while the US assembled a vast fleet of fighter jets and warships in the region to pressure Iran into a deal over its nuclear program.
The IDF launched the surprise ‘preemptive’ attack in coordination with the United States, an Israeli source told CNN. Katz said the attack was ‘to remove threats.’
Israel 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.’
An image shows smoke billowing from a building after an explosion in Tehran, Iran, on Saturday morning. The apparent strike happened near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Israel Katz, the Israeli Defense Minister, announcement that the country is under a state of emergency as thick smoke rose from an explosion in downtown Tehran (pictured)
Airspace above Israel was closed to civilian flights following the strike this morning.
More explosions struck Iran’s capital after Israel said it was attacking the country. Authorities have offered no casualty information from the strikes.
The explosion comes as tensions are high between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s nuclear program.
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.
Pictured: Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz. He said the daylight attack was ‘to remove threats,’ without providing any further information. Early reports suggest that the attack on Iran was coordinated with the US
‘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.
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.
This is a breaking news story.