TEHRAN: The United States and Israel launched a wave of strikes against targets in Iranian cities on Saturday, triggering explosions and columns of smoke in the capital Tehran, but Iran retaliated with full force firing missiles at Israel with several Middle East countries also hit by attacks.
Iran responded by launching retaliatory missile attacks, according to the Israeli military, as US diplomats in the Gulf and Israeli civilians were ordered to seek shelter.
Death toll in strike on southern Iran school reaches 40
At least 40 people were killed on Saturday in a strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran, state media said Saturday, after Israel and the United States launched attacks.
“The death toll from the Minab girls’ elementary school has reached 40,” state television said, adding that 45 more people were wounded in the alleged strike in Hormozgan province.
Several Israeli cities hit by Iran missiles
The Israeli military said it detected missiles launched from Iran on as sirens sounded across several parts of the country.
“A short while ago, sirens were sounded in several areas across the country following the identification of missiles launched from Iran toward the State of Israel,” the military said in a statement.
A cellphone message was sent to members of the public urging them to seek shelter.
AFP journalists heard several blasts over Jerusalem on Saturday following air raid sirens in the city, after the Israeli military said it had detected multiple barrages of missiles launched from Iran.
“An additional barrage of missiles was launched towards the State of Israel. The public is requested to continue to follow the instructions of the Home Front Command, the public is requested to stay in protected spaces until official notice,” the military said in a statement.
Iran simultaneously fired ballistic missiles at Israel, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in retaliation to the US and Israel’s joint attack.
Explosions were heard in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, and a missile was intercepted by Qatari missile defence.
Two Abu Dhabi residents told the news agency AFP that they heard the blasts. Explosions were also heard across Doha and Riyadh, AFP reported.
In Abu Dhabi, the UAE Air Force and the US Air Force share the Al Dhafra Air Base. The UAE had earlier closed its airspace “temporarily and partially” as an exceptional precautionary measure. In Doha, the 24-hectare Al Udeid Air Base is the forward headquarters for US Central Command.
Bahrain said that a missile attack targeted the US Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in the island kingdom. It offered no other immediate information about the attack. “The Fifth Fleet’s service centre was subjected to a missile attack. We will provide you with details later,” Bahrain’s National Communication Centre said in a statement. The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet area of responsibility includes the Gulf, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and parts of the Indian Ocean. Several US ships have their home port in Bahrain, including anti-mine vessels and logistical support ships.
The US reportedly has over 2,000 soldiers in Saudi Arabia, with some of them being stationed roughly 60 km south of Riyadh, at Prince Sultan Air Base. The base supports US Army assets, including Patriot missile batteries and Terminal High Altitude Area Defence systems.
Warplanes, missiles seen in Iraq
Warplanes and missiles were seen flying through Iraqi airspace as Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran, witnesses and a military source told AFP.
The military source said on condition of anonymity “our forces detected warplanes from the direction of Israel that crossed the airspace over Baghdad” and other provinces, adding that missiles were also seen flying over the northern province of Kirkuk.
“We saw several missiles flying at a low altitude” near the district of Dakuk in Kirkuk, two witnesses said. A soldier in the city of Ramadi in western Iraq told AFP he saw warplanes flying overhead.
Emergency sirens sound in Bahrain
Emergency sirens went off in Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, the interior ministry said on Saturday following US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
“The siren has been sounded due to a hazard,” said an interior ministry alert sent to residents’ mobile phones. AFP correspondents in Manama also reported hearing the siren.
Sirens heard in Jordanian capital
Sirens were heard in the Jordanian capital on Saturday after the United States and Israel launched a wave of strikes on Iran.
The public security directorate in Amman said “the meaning of the sirens will be as follows: three intermittent sirens mean there is a threat, and one siren means the threat has passed”.
“When you hear the three sirens, it is advisable to stay where you are and not move. If you are outside your home, you should take shelter in the nearest building until the threat has passed,” it added in a statement.
UAE, Kuwait respond to incoming missiles
The United Arab Emirates said it had intercepted Iranian missiles and reserved its right to respond to the attacks, while Kuwait also engaged incoming strikes on Saturday.
“The Ministry of Defence announced that the United Arab Emirates was subjected today to a blatant attack by Iranian ballistic missiles. The UAE’s air defences responded with high efficiency and successfully intercepted a number of the missiles,” it said in a statement.
Abu Dhabi said it “reserves its full right to respond” slamming the attacks as “a dangerous escalation”.
Kuwait’s Chief of Staff said in a statement that “air defence systems engaged incoming missiles detected in the airspace”.
Qatar shoots down missiles
Several explosions were heard across Doha as Qatar’s defence ministry said it had intercepted several missile attacks targeting the Gulf state.
Blasts were heard over central Doha and near the Al-Udeid military base, the largest US military facility in the region.
An AFP journalist saw an interceptor destroy one missile in a puff of white smoke, as Qatar’s defence ministry said in a statement it had “repelled a number of attacks”.
The military in Gulf state of Qatar shot down two missiles fired by the Iran towards US base in the country. The missiles were shot down with the help of US-provided Patriot missiles.
UAE and Qatar have also closed their airspace for flights
Loud explosions heard in Riyadh
AFP correspondents in the Saudi capital Riyadh heard loud explosions, after Qatar and a US base in Bahrain were struck.
Two correspondents in Riyadh said they heard a loud bang and several explosions, after Iran vowed retaliation following US and Israeli attacks.
Two killed in attack on Iraq base
A bombing that targeted an Iraqi military base housing a pro-Iran group killed at least two people, Iraqi authorities said Saturday.
The United States and Israel have launched strikes against Iran, with US President Donald Trump vowing to “annihilate” the country’s navy and missile sites.
The Jurf al-Sakher base, also known as Jurf al-Nasr, in southern Iraq belongs to Hashed al-Shaabi or the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a former paramilitary group now integrated into the regular army.
But the base mostly hosts the powerful pro-Iran group Kataeb Hezbollah.
A source from Kataeb Hezbollah told AFP that “there are two martyrs from Kataeb and another five wounded in the aggression on the Jurf al-Nasr base.”
The Iraqi government’s security media cell announced that “at 11:50 am (0850 GMT), the Jurf al-Nasr area… was targeted by several airstrikes, resulting in the martyrdom of two people.” It also wounded three others.
The Hashed al-Shaabi confirmed the attack and the casualties.
A source in the Hashed al-Shaabi told AFP: “It is not clear yet if the attack was carried out by the Americans or the Israelis”.
The US-blacklisted Kataeb has several brigades that operate within the Hashed al-Shaabi. It is also part of the Iran-backed so-called “axis of resistance” and has a reputation for acting on its own.
The group warned the US on Thursday of “immense losses” were it to start a war in the region, and it urged its fighters “to prepare for a potentially long war of attrition”.
Huge security deployment in Tehran
Smoke was rising over Tehran’s Pasteur district, site of the home of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and there was a huge security deployment in the capital.
Witnesses told AFP correspondents they had heard at least three blasts in the area.
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, and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation was to remove an “existential threat”.
“The United States’ military began major combat operations in Iran,” Trump said in a video message posted on his social media site while he spent the weekend at his Florida golf club.
– ‘Totally obliterated’ –
“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated. We’re going to annihilate their navy,” Trump said.
He offered the Iranian military “immunity” should they surrender, or “certain death” if not, and told Iranians the “hour of your freedom is at hand”, urging them to rise up and “take over your government”.
Israel’s Netanyahu echoed this call, telling Iranians that the time had come to “cast off the yoke of tyranny”.
Iranian state television reported that President Masoud Pezeshkian was “safe and sound”, while the Fars news agency said “seven missile impacts were reported in the Keshvardoost and Pasteur districts” of Tehran.
“I saw with my own eyes two Tomahawk missiles flying horizontally toward targets,” an office worker told AFP on condition of anonymity. “At first we heard a dull noise and thought it was a fighter jet.”
In Tehran, AFP journalists heard blasts and saw smoke rising over the city centre. The health ministry said ambulances had been dispatched but there was no immediate confirmation of casualties.
Iran, Iraq and Israel all closed their airspaces to civilian traffic once the strikes were underway, and US embassies in the Gulf urged American citizens to take shelter.
Blasts were heard over Jerusalem after air raid sirens sounded, with the military reporting that “an additional barrage of missiles was launched towards the State of Israel” and .
Sirens also sounded in Bahrain, home to a US fleet, and in the Jordanian capital Amman, with Jordan’s air force saying it was conducting an operation “to defend the kingdom’s skies”.
With the strikes underway, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah voiced confidence in victory against the Islamic republic.
“We are very close to final victory. I want to be by your side as soon as possible so that together we can take back and rebuild Iran,” Reza Pahlavi, who lives in the Washington area, said in an online video address.
Jerusalem talks
Trump had ordered the biggest military build-up in decades in the Middle East, with the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, approaching the coast of Israel.
After the United States and Iran held talks in Geneva this week, Trump said on Friday that the cleric-run state was “not willing to give us what we have to have”.
The strikes come weeks after Iranian authorities killed thousands of people as they crushed mass protests, according to rights groups.
Iran agreed to restrictions to low-level enrichment in a 2015 deal that Trump ripped up during his first term in office.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Israel for talks on Iran on Monday, the State Department said. In a rare break from decades of precedent, the top diplomat will travel without reporters on his plane.
