Image source, Getty Images
- Author, Writing
- Author's title, BBC News World
Israel launched the Nascent Leon operation against Iran, a series of unprecedented attacks aimed at various places related to its nuclear program, ballistic missile factories and its air defense capabilities.
His army also killed Hossein Salami, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran (a powerful branch of the country's armed forces) and six leading nuclear scientists, according to Iranian state media.
In the same attack, Fereydoon Abbasi, former director of the Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, and Mohammad Bagheri, head of the General Staff of the Iranian Army, announced Effie Defrin, spokesman for the Armed Forces of Israel (FDI), also died.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatolá Ali Jamenei, said in a statement that Israel had “unleashed his perverse and bloody hand” in a crime against Iran that “will not be unpunished.”
“With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared a bitter and painful destiny, which will certainly see.”
He added that Israel would face a “severe punishment.”
Iranian paramilitary groups and Iraqi allied with Tehran repeatedly warned that any attack against Iran, either by Israel or the United States, would turn US interests and bases in the region, especially in Iraq, in “legitimate” objectives.
Iran has not seen military operations of this scale in its territory since the Iran-Irak war.
Image source, Getty Images
The main uranium enrichment plant in Iran, Natanz, was attacked and local media report that other attacks hit residential areas of the capital, Tehran, and other cities, and that among the dead there are civilians.
The FDI spokesman said that “200 Israeli combat aircraft participated in the attacks, reaching more than 100 goals in Iran.”
Israel, which has military and diplomatic support from the United States, considers Iran an existential threat.
The justification of Israel
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamín Netanyahu, declared that the attacks were a “selective military operation to counteract the Iranian threat to Israel's own survival”, stating that “if it does not stop, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time.”
“We are at a decisive moment in the history of Israel. This operation will continue during the days that are necessary to eliminate this threat,” he said.
The Israeli army said that its intelligence compilation showed that Iran was approaching the “point of no return” in its nuclear program.
Iran's response was swift and answered the attack with the launch of 100 drones that Israel's aerial defenses intercepted, just like the dozens of missiles that Tehran launched on Friday night.
Image source, Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS
The United States said they had not participated in the operation, which increases the risk of a new climb of tensions in the Middle East, an important oil -producing region.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, told Fox News that he had been informed in advance of Israeli attacks, which, according to the Israeli army, involved 200 combat planes. Trump also emphasized that Tehran “cannot have a nuclear bomb.”
The United States stressed that he did not participate in Israeli action and warned Tehran not to attack his staff or his interests.
However, Tehran said that the United States would be “responsible for the consequences”, since the Israeli operation “could not have been carried out without the coordination and permission of the United States.”
Image source, Getty Images
On Thursday, Washington ordered the evacuation of Iraq of the non -essential personnel – and of their relatives – of the Embassy in Baghdad due to the increase in safety risks, according to US government sources reported Thursday.
The announcement was made a few hours before Israel launched the “preventive attack.”
After initiated the offensive, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, issued a statement in which he assured that his country “did not participate in the attacks against Iran” and pointed out that Israel acted unilaterally.
“They informed us that they thought that action was necessary for their own defense.”
“Let's be clear: Iran should not attack American interests or personnel,” he added.
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