{"id":497128,"date":"2026-03-01T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/497128\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T08:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T08:00:08","slug":"iran-fires-missiles-at-israel-and-gulf-states-after-us-israeli-strike-kills-khamenei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/497128\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran fires missiles at Israel and Gulf states after US-Israeli strike kills Khamenei"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Iran fired missiles at targets in Israel and Gulf Arab states Sunday after vowing massive retaliation for the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei<\/a> by the United States and Israel, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> to threaten Tehran against further escalation. <\/p>\n

Iran acknowledged 86-year-old Khamenei\u2019s death in the joint Israeli-American airstrike Saturday at his Tehran office, which has thrown the future of the Islamic Republic<\/a> into question and raised the risk of regional instability. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Cabinet vowed that this \u201cgreat crime will never go unanswered\u201d and the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard threatened to launch its \u201cmost intense offensive operation\u201d ever, targeting Israeli and American bases. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou have crossed our red line and must pay the price,\u201d Iran\u2019s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said in a televised address Sunday. \u201cWe will deliver such devastating blows that you yourselves will be driven to beg.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIran just stated that they are going to hit very hard today, harder than they have ever hit before,\u201d Trump fired back in a social media post. \u201cTHEY BETTER NOT DO THAT, HOWEVER, BECAUSE IF THEY DO, WE WILL HIT THEM WITH A FORCE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE!\u201d<\/p>\n

As Israel and the U.S. targeted other top officials, an airstrike on a meeting of the country\u2019s defense council killed Iran\u2019s army chief of staff and defense minister, alongside the head of Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard and a top security adviser to Khamenei.<\/p>\n

Gen. Abdol Rahim Mousavi and Defense Minister Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh were killed at the meeting, along with Maj. Gen. Mohammad Pakpour took over as the Guard\u2019s top commander after Israel killed its past commander in the 12-day war last June. The adviser, Ali Shamkhani, had long been a figurehead within Iran\u2019s security establishment.<\/p>\n

In a sign of how the attack could spread instability throughout the region, hundreds of Shiite Muslims stormed the U.S. Consulate in Pakistan\u2019s port city of Karachi on Sunday, smashing windows. Police and paramilitary forces used batons and fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, said Mohammad Jawad, a police official. At least one protester was killed and several others were wounded in clashes, he said. Shiite Islam is the predominant branch in Iran, though its followers are a minority in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Iran retaliates<\/p>\n

After the initial strikes, Iran immediately launched missiles and drones toward Israel<\/a> and U.S. military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. The Israeli military said Iran fired dozens of missiles at Israel, with many intercepted. The Magen David Adom rescue service said Saturday night that a woman in the Tel Aviv area died after being wounded in an Iranian missile attack.<\/p>\n

Flights across the Middle East were disrupted<\/a>, and air defense fire thudded over Dubai, the United Arab Emirates\u2019 commercial capital, with explosions continuing into Sunday morning. Shrapnel from an Iranian missile attack on the UAE capital killed one person, state media said, and debris from aerial interceptions caused fires at the city\u2019s main port and on the facade of the iconic Burj Al Arab hotel. <\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia said Iran targeted its capital and eastern region in an attack that was repelled and Jordan said it \u201cdealt with\u201d 49 drones and ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n

The strikes could rattle global markets, particularly if Iran makes the Strait of Hormuz unsafe for commercial traffic. A third of worldwide oil exports<\/a> transported by sea passed through the strait in 2025.<\/p>\n

The attack on Iran opened a stunning new chapter in U.S. intervention<\/a>, and carried the potential for retaliatory violence and a wider war, representing a startling flex of military might for an American president who swept into office on an \u201cAmerica First\u201d platform and vowed to keep out of \u201cforever wars.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The killing of Khamenei in the second Trump administration assault<\/a> on Iran in eight months appeared certain to create a leadership vacuum, given the absence of a known successor and because the supreme leader<\/a> had final say on all major policies during his decades in power. He led Iran\u2019s clerical establishment and the Revolutionary Guard, the two main centers of power in the governing theocracy.<\/p>\n

Iran quickly formed a council to govern the country until a new supreme leader is chosen.<\/p>\n

As reports trickled out about Khamenei\u2019s death, eyewitnesses in Tehran told The Associated Press that some residents were rejoicing, cheering from rooftops, blowing whistles and letting out ululations.<\/p>\n

Mourners raised a black flag over the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad and the Iranian government declared 40 days of public mourning and a seven-day nationwide public holiday to commemorate Khamenei\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Citing unidentified sources, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported that several relatives of Khamenei were also killed, including a daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and grandchild.<\/p>\n

Strikes were planned for months<\/p>\n

The joint U.S.-Israel operation, which officials say was planned for months, started Saturday during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan<\/a> and at the start of the Iranian workweek. It followed stilted negotiations and warnings from Trump.<\/p>\n

The U.S. military said targets in Iran included Revolutionary Guard command facilities, air defense systems, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields. It reported no U.S. casualties and minimal damage at U.S. bases despite \u201chundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats decried that Trump had taken action without congressional authorization<\/a>. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the administration had briefed several Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress in advance.<\/p>\n

Tensions soared as US built up military forces<\/p>\n

Tensions have soared in recent weeks as the Trump administration built up the largest force of American warships<\/a> and aircraft in the Middle East in decades. The president insisted he wanted a deal to constrain Iran\u2019s nuclear program while the country struggled with growing dissent<\/a> following nationwide protests<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Though Trump had pronounced the Iranian nuclear program obliterated in strikes last year, the country was rebuilding infrastructure that it had lost, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss Trump\u2019s decision-making process. The official said intelligence showed that Iran had developed the capability to produce its own high-quality centrifuges, an important step in developing the highly enriched uranium needed for weapons.<\/p>\n

Iran had said it hoped to avert a war, but it maintained its right to enrich uranium. <\/p>\n

Iran has said it has not enriched since June<\/a>, but it has blocked international inspectors from visiting the sites the U.S. bombed. Satellite photos analyzed by AP have shown new activity at two of those sites<\/a>, suggesting Iran is trying to assess and potentially recover material.<\/p>\n

Attack was coordinated between Israel and US<\/p>\n

Israel said the operation had been planned for months with the United States. Air Force pilots struck \u201chundreds of targets across Iran,\u201d Israeli military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Targets in the Israeli campaign included Iran\u2019s military, symbols of government and intelligence targets, according to an official briefed on the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information on the attack.<\/p>\n

In southern Iran, at least 115 people were reported killed when a girls\u2019 school was struck, and dozens more were wounded, the local governor told Iranian state TV. U.S. Central Command spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins said he was \u201caware of reports\u201d that a girls\u2019 school was struck and that officials were looking into them.<\/p>\n

An Iranian diplomat told the United Nations Security Council<\/a> that hundreds of civilians were killed and wounded in the strikes. <\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s state news agency IRNA said at least 15 people were killed in the southwest, quoting the governor of the Lamerd region, Ali Alizadeh, as saying a sports hall, two residential areas and a hall near a school were hit.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Lidman reported from Tel Aviv. Boak reported from West Palm Beach, Florida. Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Joe Federman in Jerusalem, Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin in Washington, Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Farnoush Amiri in New York, David Rising in Bangkok and AP journalists around the world contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Iran fired missiles at targets in Israel and Gulf Arab states Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[7589,227201,180119,209875,23,227199,12,173694,208769,793,801,1570,803,1569,17153,1575,1576,39317,224856,227202,227200,3,66067,111,210370,21,19,22,20,25,24,964,965],"class_list":{"0":"post-497128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","9":"tag-ali-alizadeh","10":"tag-ali-khamenei","11":"tag-ali-shamkhani","12":"tag-america","13":"tag-aziz-nasirzadeh","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-drone-surveillance-and-warfare","16":"tag-eyal-zamir","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-iran","19":"tag-iran-government","20":"tag-israel","21":"tag-israel-government","22":"tag-karoline-leavitt","23":"tag-mideast-wars","24":"tag-military-and-defense","25":"tag-military-technology","26":"tag-mohammad-bagher-qalibaf","27":"tag-mohammad-jawad","28":"tag-mohammad-pakpour","29":"tag-news","30":"tag-persian-gulf","31":"tag-politics","32":"tag-tim-hawkins","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-united-states-of-america","35":"tag-unitedstates","36":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","37":"tag-us","38":"tag-usa","39":"tag-war-and-unrest","40":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}