US strikes Iran military targets as Trump calls for overthrow of regime

WASHINGTON — US warplanes and navy ships launched strikes targeting military sites across Iran on Saturday in a coordinated attack with the Israeli military.

US President Donald Trump announced “major combat operations” and called on Iran’s people to overthrow their government in a pre-recorded speech released before dawn in Washington on Saturday.

“Take over your government. It will be yours to take,” Trump said in the eight-minute video. “This will probably be your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it.”

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The initial US strikes were carried out by Navy warships firing Tomahawk Land Attack cruise missiles and by strike aircraft based in neighboring countries. The initial wave of US strikes appeared to focus largely on Iranian military targets.

“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” Trump said, adding, “It will be totally, again, obliterated.”

“We're going to annihilate their navy. We're going to ensure that the region's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces,” the president said.

Trump further called on members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, military, and police to “lay down your arms [and] you will be treated fairly with total immunity, or you will face certain death.” Trump also warned that American personnel may be killed in the operation, which a US official speaking on condition of anonymity said could last several days, depending on Iran's retaliation.

Israel’s military announced it was carrying out strikes in full coordination with the US, saying the objective was to “thoroughly degrade the Iranian terrorist regime and to remove existential threats to Israel over time.”

Explosions were also reported near the cities of Qom, Kermanshah, Isfahan, and Karaj, as well as in Ilam province in Iran’s west near the border with Iraq, and at facilities at the port of Shahid Rajaee near Bandar Abbas, which is home to Iran’s main naval base.

In Minab, near Iran's coast at the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian media reported 40 civilians were killed and at least as many injured when a strike hit a girls' school.

Cell phone and internet service were disrupted in the capital amid reports of strikes in the central Jomhouri neighborhood and Seyyed Khandan in northern Tehran, where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s residence is located.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the combined US-Israeli operation “will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were monitoring the situation from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Friday morning, Reuters reported.

Iran launched missiles in retaliation for the attack, with explosions reported in Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. The governments of Qatar, Jordan, and Kuwait said their military forces intercepted incoming missiles.

The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters compound outside of Manama was also hit with what appeared to be at least one Iranian attack drone, although no casualties were reported. A spokesperson for US Central Command declined to comment on the strikes.

Airstrikes were also reported in Iraq in the Jurf al-Sakhar area of Babil province, between Baghdad and Najaf, as well as near Karbala. Two people were initially reported to have been killed and three injured in those strikes, the Iraqi government’s security media cell said. As of publication time, neither the US nor Israel claimed responsibility for strikes in Iraq.

Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the largest militias armed and funded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iraq, vowed it would soon begin  targeting US bases in response to the US-Israeli attacks.

Pentagon officials notified the heads of the Senate and House Armed Services committees, another US official speaking not for attribution told Al-Monitor.

Elizabeth Hagedorn contributed reporting.

This is a developing story and will be updated.