DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States and Israel hit Iran's capital and other cities in multiple airstrikes on Wednesday, the fifth day of the war with Iran. Israel targeted the Iranian leadership and security forces as the Islamic Republic responded with missile barrages and drone attacks on Israel and across the region.
Tehran residents woke to the sound of dawn blasts, and Iranian state television showed the ruins of building in the center of the capital. The Shiite seminary city of Qom and multiple other cities were targeted.
With fighter jets roaring overhead, those still in Tehran looked anxiously to the skies. One man, who ran a clothing shop, said he didn’t know what to do.
“If I leave the city, how am I supposed to earn money and survive?” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. “I just hope the Arabs do not get involved. If they do, their missiles won’t be as precise as these.”
The Israeli military said one of its F-35 stealth fighter jets shot down a piloted Iranian Air Force YAK-130 fighter over Tehran on Wednesday. It also said Israeli air defenses had been activated to intercept Iranian missiles fired at targets around the country, with explosions heard around Jerusalem.
US Embassies and oil in the crosshairs
With Iran's stranglehold on tanker movement through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which about a fifth of the world's oil is shipped, Brent crude prices hit $84 a barrel, up more than 15% since the start of the conflict and at its highest price since July 2024. Global stock markets have been hammered over worries that the spike in oil prices may grind down the world economy and sap corporate profits.
The American Embassy in Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Consulate in the United Arab Emirates came under drone attacks Tuesday, and the U.S. State Department said Wednesday it had authorized non-emergency government personnel to evacuate the kingdom.
U.S. Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, said Iran has launched more than 500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 drones so far. He described the American strikes in the opening hours of the campaign as “nearly double the scale” of the initial attacks during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
“We’ve already struck nearly 2,000 targets, with more than 2,000 munitions. We have severely degraded Iran’s air defenses and destroyed hundreds of Iran’s ballistic missiles, launchers and drones,” Cooper said in a prerecorded message shared online Wednesday.
Five days into a war that U.S. President Donald Trump suggested could last a month or longer, nearly 800 people have been killed in Iran, including some Trump said he had considered as possible future leaders of the country.
Both sides are unrelenting in attacks
Air sirens sounded in the morning across the island kingdom of Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and Qatar’s Ministry of Defense said Iran launched two ballistic missiles against it. One hit Al-Udeid Qatari Base but didn’t cause casualties.
Lebanon was hit in multiple strikes, where Israel said it is retaliating against Hezbollah militants after the Iran-backed group fired on Israel. Lebanon's state-run media said at least five people were killed in an Israeli strike at a residential complex in the city of Baalbeck. More than 50 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 300 wounded, according to the Health Ministry.
Iranian-linked militant groups in Iraq have also been launching attacks, with Saraya Awliya al-Dam claiming responsibility for a drone attack Wednesday on Jordan. The Shiite militia group one of several operating in Iraq, and claimed responsibility for attacks in the past days on American targets in Baghdad and the northern Iraqi city Irbil.
Iran has fired regular salvoes of missiles and drones missiles at Israel, though most of the incoming fire has been intercepted. Eleven people in Israel have been killed since the conflict began.
The spiraling nature of the war raised questions about when and how it would end.
Trump's administration has offered various objectives, including destroying Iran’s missile capabilities, wiping out its navy, preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensuring it cannot continue to support allied armed groups.
Israel presses attacks on Iranian security forces and leadership
While the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Trump urged Iranians to overthrow their government, senior administration officials have since said regime change was not the goal.
Trump on Tuesday seemed to downplay the chances of the war ending Iran's theocratic rule, saying that “someone from within” the Iranian regime might be the best choice to take power once the U.S.-Israel campaign is finished.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said Wednesday on X that whoever Iran picks as the country’s next supreme leader, he will be “a target for elimination.”
The Israeli military also said it hit buildings in Tehran associated with the Basij, the all-volunteer force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that conducted the bloody crackdown on protesters in January that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands detained in the country.
Iran's judiciary chief, Gholam Hosseini Mohseni Ejehei, on Wednesday threatened anyone who supports the U.S.-Israeli campaign.
“Those who say or do anything in line with the will of America and the Zionist regime are on the enemy’s side and must be dealt with on revolutionary, Islamic principles and in accordance with the time of war,” he said on Iranian state television.
Iran’s leaders are scrambling to replace Khamenei, who ruled the country for 37 years. It’s only the second time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that a new supreme leader is being chosen. Among those who are considered as possible candidates is Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the late ayatollah.
Israeli military spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said the military struck a building in the Iranian city of Qom Tuesday where clerics were expected to meet to discuss selecting a new supreme leader. He said the army was still assessing whether anyone was hit.
The semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to the Guard, linked the building to Iran’s Assembly of Experts and said Wednesday there was no meeting there at the time of the attack. Fars said that the assembly was meeting remotely, without elaborating.
Hundreds have died, including children
The U.S.-Israeli strikes have killed at least 787 people in Iran, according to the Red Crescent Society.
Kuwait, which had previously reported a single death, said Wednesday that an 11-year-old girl was killed by falling shrapnel as Kuwaiti forces were intercepting “hostile aerial targets.” In addition, three people were killed in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain.
Six U.S. Army Reserve soldiers were killed by a drone strike Sunday on a command center in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait.
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Rising reported from Bangkok, and Magdy from Cairo. Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece, Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok and Giovanna Dell'Orto in Miami contributed to this report.