President Donald Trump is reportedly considering intensifying military actions against Iran after the United States and Israel initiated a series of assaults on the regime early Saturday morning.
As Saturday dawned in the US, Tehran had already launched counterattacks, targeting Israel and striking American bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait.
In Dubai, a favorite destination for tourists in the UAE, the Palm Jumeirah Fairmont Hotel was engulfed in flames following a rocket strike.
Although Saudi Arabia lacks formal diplomatic ties with Israel, its leadership maintains a close relationship with the Trump administration. Reports from Saudi authorities indicated that Iran attempted to strike Riyadh, but these attacks were successfully thwarted.
According to CNN’s Saturday morning coverage, journalist Jim Sciutto relayed information from a senior US official suggesting that the President’s strategy includes a series of escalating attacks with planned pauses.
This military campaign is anticipated to unfold over a one to two-day span, with intervals for assessing the impact of each strike, potentially extending over several weeks.
The initial assault – which Trump referred to as ‘Operation Epic Fury’ – used ‘one way attack drones’ for the first time in combat, according to Fox News Channel.
Also referred to as ‘kamikaze’ drones, the weapons fly into targets and then detonate.
Smoke can be seen rising over Tehran, Iran Saturday morning after the US and Israel conducted ‘major’ operations after nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran broke down
An explosion is seen off the coast of Haifa in northern Israel Saturday as Iran retaliated against a joint US-Israel operation that took place Saturday morning
Tomahawk missiles were used to take out Iran’s air defenses before the drones were deployed.
‘We have effectively suppressed their air defenses,’ a US official told Fox.
The US military focused on ‘high value targets,’ Fox said, including assets important to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and ‘underground targets’ that likely were part of Iran’s nuclear program.
Iran’s Defense Minister Amir Nasirzadeh and Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammed Pakpour were killed in Israeli attacks, sources told Reuters.
Iranian state media say an Israeli strike on a girls’ elementary school killed at least 40 people.
Trump announced the US strikes in a video message posted to Truth Social at 2:30 a.m. ET.
In an eight minute speech, given from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the President said he had ordered a ‘major’ strike on Iran after nuclear negotiations between the two countries had broken down.
‘Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,’ Trump said.
He, again, reiterated that the Iranian regime must never obtain a nuclear weapon.
While Trump’s military maneuvering so far in his second term – the January capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and the ‘Midnight Hammer’ attack on Iranian nuclear facilities in June – haven’t cost servicemembers’ lives, he warned that Americans could die this time around.
A social media post shows the Palm Jumeirah Fairmont Hotel in the popular tourist destination of Dubai, UAE on fire Saturday after an Iranian rocket strike
A smoke plume rises over Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, a country that houses US military personnel and installations
Smoke from a reported rocket interception is seen over the sky in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates where the US has military personnel
‘Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill,’ Trump said. ‘The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties.’
‘That often happens in war,’ the commander-in-chief added. ‘But we’re doing this not for now, we’re doing this for the future and it is a noble mission.’
Trump called out the Iranian regime and their proxies for creating ‘mass terror’ around the world, but he also pointed to the Tehran’s recent mass murder domestically, of protesters in their own streets.
In mid-January, the President had promised those protesters that ‘help is on the way.’
In his overnight message, he pushed the Iranian people to take back control of their government, which was put in place after the 1979 Iranian revolution.
‘Finally, to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered, don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere,’ Trump said. ‘When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.’
