The U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran in an attack early Saturday morning as talks over Iran’s nuclear program failed to produce the result President Donald Trump desired.
Trump posted an eight-minute video on his social media platform calling the attack a “massive and ongoing operation.”
“We’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” Trump said. The exact targets of the strikes were not immediately clear.
The Associated Press reported that a cloud of smoke was rising from Tehran’s downtown area. The apparent strike happened near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to the AP report.
The Israeli government declared a state of alert across the country because of the expectation of Iranian retaliation. “This is a proactive alert to prepare the public for the possibility of missiles being launched toward the State of Israel,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a post on X.
Trump has threatened to take action for months, and amassed the largest military buildup in the region since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. He initially argued the U.S. would intervene to assist anti-government protesters, thousands of whom were killed in January. But as protests waned and nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran renewed in February, Trump began threatening to use force if Tehran didn’t agree to curb its nuclear program.
The strikes early Saturday mark the latest military intervention in Trump’s increasingly muscular foreign policy, and come after U.S. special forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January. They also underscore the president’s willingness to take major military gambles abroad, even at the risk of escalating feuds with foes and destabilizing alliances.
But the Trump administration has said little publicly about what it would do to avoid civil unrest if the strikes manage to destabilize a regime that has prevailed for nearly half a century.
In late January, Trump said he would attack Iran with “speed and violence” if leaders did not agree to U.S. demands, referencing his desire for Tehran to permanently end its enrichment of uranium. Trump, in his State of the Union address in February, accused Iran of restarting its nuclear weapons program — a claim Iran has denied.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Trump and top administration officials met with throughout the negotiating process, has also encouraged the U.S. to demand Tehran curb its ballistic missile program and halt funding for its proxy groups in the region. Israel has urged strong military action, pushing for strikes that would target, not only Iranian centrifuges, but also Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command-and-control nodes.
The Pentagon has ordered two aircraft carriers to the Middle East, along with aerial refueling and surveillance aircraft. Dozens of F-35s, F-16s and F-16Es shifted to air bases in the Middle East and United Kingdom — within range to strike inside Iran. The buildup also included several F-22s that were deployed during the Venezuela operation in January.
Trump first threatened to strike Iran in January over its mass killing of protesters. But Gulf allies and Israel dissuaded the president from doing anything that could spark a wider regional conflict. Instead, the president opted to send special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to Oman and then Geneva for multiple rounds of indirect negotiations with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi about a nuclear deal.
Araghchi, after the most recent round in Geneva, said the two sides had agreed to a set of principles to frame future discussions. But key differences remained.
The Trump administration wanted Tehran to stop its uranium enrichment and curb its ballistic missile program. Iran rejected efforts to limit its missile program and steadfastly claimed that it had no intention of building a bomb — but had the right to enrich uranium.
Trump and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, compounded those differences by lobbing a continuous volley of insults and threats at one another. While Trump repeatedly threatened military action and built up his war-fighting capabilities in the region, Khamenei made clear that Iran had no intention of backing down to American demands.
The strikes sharply escalate tensions across the Middle East. Iran had promised retaliation for any strikes, which could threaten American personnel stationed in the region. Escalation could come directly from Iran or through regional proxies such as the Hezbollah terrorist group or the Houthi rebels in Yemen, raising the threat to U.S. forces, allies and commercial shipping.
Sophia Cai contributed reporting.