US President Donald Trump on Saturday celebrated US-Israeli airstrikes that killed Iran’s leader but warned attacks would continue.
The strikes, which Trump said were aimed at destroying Iranian missiles and annihilating its navy, follow repeated US-Israeli warnings that they would strike Iran again if it pressed ahead with its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.
Trump, who is monitoring the operation from his Mar-a-Lago oceanfront resort in Florida, posted on Saturday afternoon that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had died in the strikes.
A senior Israeli official earlier told Reuters Khamenei’s body had been found, and Trump concurred in a post on Truth Social.
“This is not only justice for the people of Iran but also for all great Americans, and those people from many countries throughout the world, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS,” Trump wrote.
Iranian state media later confirmed Khamenei’s death.
Trump had warned earlier on Saturday there could be American casualties from “major combat operations” in Iran. But almost 12 hours after the first strikes, US central command said it had “no reports of US casualties or combat-related injuries. Damage to US installations was minimal and has not impacted operations.”
The strikes are expected to happen over several days, a US official told Reuters. Trump said on social media heavy bombing “will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or as long as necessary” to achieve “PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”
This is the second series of US strikes on Iran since Trump returned to the White House last year. The first was in June when Washington struck Iranian nuclear sites.
Despite talks in recent weeks between Iran and the US, including a meeting on Thursday, senior Trump administration officials told reporters on Saturday the president saw both immediate and long-term reasons to green-light the latest strikes.
One senior US official said the Iranians were not willing to give up their nuclear programme, and “it was very clear that the intent for them was to preserve their ability to do enrichment so that over time, they could use it for nuclear bombs.”
This official said the Iranians used “games, tricks, and stall tactics” to string out talks.
Another senior US official said Iran’s missile programme posed a more immediate threat, and the US had “indicators” Iran intended to use this capability against American forces “potentially, preemptively”, or “simultaneously” with military operations.
“We had analysis that basically told us if we sat back and waited to get hit first, the number of casualties and damage would be substantially higher than if we acted in a preemptive defensive way,” the senior administration official said without sharing specific details.
In his original Saturday announcement video, Trump encouraged regime change, telling the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s elite armed forces, to lay down their weapons, promising they would be granted immunity.
The other option, according to Trump, is “certain death”.
The Iranian people should “take over” governance of their country, Trump said in the video.
“It will be yours to take,” he said. “This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
Photos released by the White House from Mar-a-Lago show Trump wearing a white “USA” hat as he worked with his national security team near a large map of the Middle East dotted with American and Iranian flags.
Mar-a-Lago’s gold-leaf decor is nowhere to be seen in the handout photos, as the president, CIA director John Ratcliffe, secretary of state Marco Rubio, chair of the joint chiefs of staff Gen Dan Caine, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles work in a space surrounded by long black curtains hanging from wood rafters.
Other cabinet officials joined from Washington, with one handout photo showing Vice President JD Vance in the White House’s situation room.
The Trump administration said Rubio spoke this week to top congressional leaders in both parties leading up to the strike.
“Everything I have heard from the administration before and after these strikes on Iran confirms this is a war of choice with no strategic endgame,” said Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ intelligence committee.
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said the administration must seek congressional authorisation for the preemptive use of military force that constitutes an act of war.
Rubio told the leaders during a briefing at the White House on Tuesday that the operation would probably move forward even as diplomatic efforts continued, two sources familiar with the matter said. The secretary of state on Friday informed the top legislators that the operation to attack Iran was likely to commence in the following hours but said Trump could change his mind, the sources said.
Some European nations are urging a return to negotiations, but most of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress — and a few Democrats such as Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — cheered Saturday’s strikes.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and frequent advocate for an aggressive US foreign policy, criticised European calls for further talks.
“To our European allies: you have gone pathetically soft and lost your zeal for confronting evil apparently unless it’s on your front porch,” Graham said in a social media post.
Reuters
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