The United States and Israel have launched an attack on Iran, with explosions heard and seen across Tehran.
Several missiles struck University Street and the Jomhouri area in Tehran, Fars News Agency reported. Smoke was seen rising over the city, according to an Al Jazeera correspondent on the ground.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported that explosions also occurred in Tehran’s northern Seyyed Khandan area. Other Iranian media cited attacks nationwide, including in the western Ilam Province.
US President Donald Trump said the joint attacks were aimed at “eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”
“A short time ago, the US military began a major combat operation in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime,” he said.
Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, claimed the missile attack was launched to “remove threats to the State of Israel.”
A United States official told Al Jazeera that the attacks were carried out as a joint military operation between Israel and the US, which has assembled a vast fleet of fighter jets and warships in the region to pressure Iran into a deal over its nuclear programme. A US official also told Reuters that the attacks were being carried out by air and sea.
One of the areas targeted in Iran’s capital was near the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Associated Press reported. Khamenei is not in Tehran and has been transferred to a secure location, according to an official cited by Reuters.
An Al Jazeera correspondent reporting from Tehran said cellphone communications have been disrupted in several areas of the capital. “No calls are possible at present,” he said.
Sirens in Israel
An Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran is preparing retaliation that is set to be “crushing.”
As sirens sounded and a state of emergency was declared in Israel, the Israeli military said it had issued a “proactive alert to prepare the public for the possibility of missiles being launched toward the State of Israel.”
Israel’s Airports Authority announced that airspace had been closed to all civilian flights and urged the public not to come to the airport.
Meanwhile, the US Embassy in Qatar implemented a shelter-in-place order for all personnel and recommended that its citizens do the same until further notice. Iraq’s Transport Ministry said it had closed its national airspace.
According to an Israeli defence official cited by the agency, the attacks had been planned for months and the launch date decided weeks ago, even as the US and Iran carried out negotiations.
Mehran Kamrava, director of the Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies and professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, said Israel “appears to have launched an attack designed to derail the negotiations.”
