In the heart of Iran’s capital, a massive explosion reverberated on Sunday as Israel’s military announced a strike targeting Tehran’s core. This development followed Iran’s missile attacks on a growing array of targets within Israel and Gulf Arab nations, a move made in retaliation for the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by the United States and Israel.
The explosion in Tehran, which erupted without an immediate identifiable target, sent a towering column of smoke into the atmosphere and shook the area. The affected zone included neighborhoods housing the national police headquarters, Iranian state television, the Revolutionary Court, and a Defense Ministry facility.
The joint offensive by the U.S. and Israel on Iran on Saturday marks a dramatic escalation in U.S. military involvement, with potential for reprisal and broader conflict. This move comes from an American president who campaigned on an “America First” agenda, pledging to avoid “endless wars.” Notably, this is the second military action against Iran in an eight-month span under the Trump administration.
Previously, a 12-day conflict in June saw U.S. and Israeli strikes severely impairing Iran’s air defense, military command, and nuclear ambitions. However, the killing of Khamenei and President Donald Trump’s call for Iranians to topple their government significantly heighten the stakes, inducing a leadership void and potentially destabilizing the region further.
In response, Iran’s Cabinet condemned the act as a “great crime that will not go unpunished,” with the Revolutionary Guard threatening to strike at Israeli and American bases.
“You have breached our red line and must face consequences,” declared Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, in a televised statement on Sunday. “We will inflict such severe retaliatory blows that you will be compelled to beg for mercy.”
Trump warned that any retaliation would only lead to further escalation.
“THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT,” Trump fired back in a social media post. “IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!”
In a sign of how the attack could spread instability throughout the region, hundreds of people stormed the U.S. Consulate in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi on Sunday. Police and paramilitary forces used batons and fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, and at least six people were killed in the clashes, authorities said.
Iran retaliates
After the initial strikes, Iran immediately launched missiles and drones toward Israel and into Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.
The strikes could rattle global markets, particularly if Iran makes the Strait of Hormuz unsafe for commercial traffic. A third of worldwide oil exports transported by sea passed through the strait in 2025.
In repeated barrages at targets across Israel, one person was killed and more than 120 injured, according to authorities. Many missiles were intercepted, the military said.
Flights across the Middle East were disrupted, and air defense fire thudded over Dubai, the United Arab Emirates’ commercial capital, which has long drawn business and expatriates by billing itself as a safe haven in a volatile region. Explosions continued into Sunday morning in Dubai.
Shrapnel from Iranian attacks on the United Arab Emirates’ capital of Abu Dhabi killed two people, state media said, and debris from aerial interceptions caused fires at the city’s main port and on the facade of the iconic Burj Al Arab hotel.
Attacks also extended into Oman – Iran’s longtime interlocutor with the West that hadn’t been drawn into the fray previously.
Saudi Arabia said Iran targeted its capital and eastern region in an attack that was repelled, and Jordan said it “dealt with” 49 drones and ballistic missiles. Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar’s military also said they had intercepted projectiles Sunday morning.
In Iraq, a militant group claimed responsibility for a drone attack targeting American bases in Irbil, according to the Rudaw media outlet. Smoke could be seen from an area where the U.S. has an air base there, but it was not immediately clear whether it had been hit.
Iran forms council to govern until a new supreme leader is chosen
As supreme leader, Khamenei had final say on all major policies during his decades in power. He led Iran’s clerical establishment and the Revolutionary Guard, the two main centers of power in the governing theocracy.
Though Trump called on Saturday for the Iranian people to “take over” their government, there was no sign in Tehran or elsewhere of unrest.
Iran quickly formed a council to govern the country until a new supreme leader is chosen.
The strikes also killed several senior officials, including: Iran’s army chief of staff, Gen. Abdol Rahim Mousavi; Defense Minister Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh; Maj. Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, who took over as the Revolutionary Guard’s top commander after Israel killed its past commander in the June war; and Ali Shamkhani, a top security adviser to Khamenei.
An Iranian diplomat told the United Nations Security Council that hundreds of civilians were killed and wounded in the strikes.
In southern Iran, at least 115 people were reported killed when a girls’ school was struck, and dozens more were wounded, the local governor told Iranian state TV. U.S. Central Command spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins said he was aware of those reports and that officials were looking into them.
Iran’s state news agency IRNA said at least 15 people were killed in the southwest, quoting the governor of the Lamerd region, Ali Alizadeh, as saying a sports hall, two residential areas and a hall near a school were hit.
As reports trickled out about Khamenei’s death, eyewitnesses in Tehran told The Associated Press that some residents were rejoicing, cheering from rooftops, blowing whistles and letting out ululations.
Mourners raised a black flag over the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad and the Iranian government declared 40 days of public mourning and a seven-day nationwide public holiday to commemorate Khamenei’s death.
Citing unidentified sources, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported that several relatives of Khamenei were also killed, including a daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and grandchild.
Strikes were planned for months and feared for weeks
Tensions have soared in recent weeks as the Trump administration built up the largest force of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades. The president insisted he wanted a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program while the country struggled with growing dissent following nationwide protests.
Democrats decried that Trump had taken action without congressional authorization. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the administration had briefed several Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress in advance.
Though Trump had pronounced the Iranian nuclear program obliterated in strikes last year, the country was rebuilding infrastructure that it had lost, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss Trump’s decision-making process. The official said intelligence showed that Iran had developed the capability to produce its own high-quality centrifuges, an important step in developing the highly enriched uranium needed for weapons.
Iran has said it has not enriched since June – though it has maintained its right to do so. It has also blocked international inspectors from visiting the sites the U.S. bombed. Satellite photos analyzed by AP have shown new activity at two of those sites, suggesting Iran is trying to assess and potentially recover material.
___
Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel; Boak from West Palm Beach, Florida; and Tucker from Washington. Associated Press writers Joe Federman in Jerusalem, Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin in Washington, Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, Farnoush Amiri in New York, David Rising in Bangkok and AP journalists around the world contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
