THE US and Israel launched a major attack on Iran on Saturday, and President Donald Trump called on the Iranian public to “seize control of your destiny” by rising up against the Islamic leadership that has ruled the nation since 1979. More than 200 people have been killed and another 747 wounded across Iran by Israel-US strikes, Iran’s state TV reported, citing the Red Crescent.

 

US military reported no American casualties and minimal damage so far in ‘hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks’. Some of the first strikes on Iran appeared to hit areas around the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Smoke could be seen rising from the capital as part of strikes that Iranian media said occurred nationwide. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the 86-year-old leader was in his offices when the attack occurred. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told NBC News that Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian are alive “as far as I know.” In southern Iran, at least 85 people were reported killed after a girls’ school was struck, and dozens more were wounded, the local governor told Iranian state TV.

 

Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for US Central Command, said he was “aware of reports” that a girls’ school was struck and they were looking into them. “When we are finished, take over your Government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations,” Trump said in a video announcing “major combat operations.” “For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it.” Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu echoed that goal, saying, “

 

Our joint operation will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands.” Democrats decried that Trump had taken action without congressional authorisation. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat, said that though Iran is a “bad actor,” the President must nonetheless “seek authorisation for the preemptive use of military force that constitutes an act of war.” The US President said he was aiming to “annihilate” the Iranian navy and destroy regional proxies supported by Tehran. The strikes during the holy fasting month of Ramzan opened a stunning new chapter in US intervention in Iran and marked the second time in eight months that the Trump administration has used military force against the Islamic Republic.

 

They also came weeks after a US military operation that captured Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and brought him and his wife to New York to face federal drug conspiracy charges. The targets included members of Iran’s leadership, according to a US official and another person briefed on the attacks who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation. There was no immediate information on whether top officials had been killed. Even if Iran’s top leaders were to be killed, regime change is not guaranteed and neither the US nor Israel have articulated a vision for what new leadership would look like.