As President Donald Trump pledged to get revenge for the first US casualties in the war he started to overthrow Tehran’s ruling clerics, the United States struck hundreds of sites throughout Iran and Israel extended its bombing to Lebanon on Monday.
Iranian military retaliated for the fight that started Saturday with the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, by firing missiles and drones across the Middle East, killing people in Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
The US military expanded targets across Iran on Sunday and said it destroyed the headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the elite unit tasked with preserving the theocracy in place since 1979.
“The IRGC no longer has a headquarters,” US Central Command said in a statement.
The Israeli military said it was carrying out “large-scale strikes” in the heart of Tehran on Monday and also bombing across Lebanon against Hezbollah, the armed Shiite Muslim movement closely tied to Iran’s Islamic republic.
An AFP journalist heard explosions in Beirut. Hezbollah, which was weakened by an earlier Israeli offensive, said in a statement that it had fired rockets and drones at Israel “in retaliation for the pure blood” of Khamenei.
Since the Islamic revolution overthrew the pro-Western shah in 1979, Iran has been Israel’s and the United States’ sworn enemy. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have called for the removal of the Iranian government.
In an interview with the New York Times, Trump stated that Israel and the United States might continue their level of assaults for four to five weeks.
“It won’t be difficult. We have tremendous amounts of ammunition,” he said, adding he had a shortlist of three unnamed people he favored to lead Iran after the war.
In a video address, Trump urged Iranian security forces “to lay down your arms and receive full immunity or face certain death.”
“It will be certain death,” he repeated. “It won’t be pretty.”
The Pentagon said that three US service members were killed in the operation and five seriously wounded in the operation it has called “Epic Fury.”
“Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends,” Trump said.
“But America will avenge their deaths and deliver the most punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against, basically, civilization.”
Trump, who ran on a platform of opposing foreign operations, hasn’t done much to convince Americans that war is necessary.
A “reckless decision” led to the troops’ deaths, according to House of Representatives Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who also stated that there was no threat to “justify this type of preemptive military strikes.”
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