DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Explosions sounded in Iran's capital on Wednesday as the war with the United States and Israel entered its fifth day, with Israel targeting the Iranian leadership and security forces and the Islamic Republic responding with missile barrages and drone attacks on Israel and across the Persian Gulf region.
The blasts in Tehran came at dawn, according to Iran state television. Israel's military said its air defenses had been activated to intercept Iranian missiles targeting Israel and explosions were heard around Jerusalem.
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 rose to more than $82 a barrel, up more than 13% 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.
“In simple terms, we are focused on shooting all the things that can shoot at us,” he added.
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.
Israel on Wednesday said it was conducting a series of strikes across Tehran targeting Iranian security forces, the day after it hit a building associated with the clerical panel that will pick Iran’s next supreme leader in the city of Qom.
Explosions and sirens around the region with both sides 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 and 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 reported that at least five people were killed in an Israeli strike that hit 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.
In addition to Hezbollah, Iranian-linked militant groups in Iraq have been launching attacks, with Saraya Awliya al-Dam claiming responsibility for a drone attack Wednesday on Jordan, where air raid sirens sounded across the country. 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 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 said Wednesday on X that whoever Iran picks to be the country’s next supreme leader, he will be “a target for elimination.”
“Every leader appointed by the Iranian terror regime to continue and lead the plan to destroy Israel, to threaten the United States and the free world and the countries of the region, and to suppress the Iranian people — will be a target for elimination,” Israel Katz wrote.
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.
Israel and the U.S. have said they want to see the Iranian public overthrow its theocracy.
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. Potential candidates range from hard-liners committed to confrontation with the West to reformists who seek diplomatic engagement.
Israeli military spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said the Israeli military on Tuesday struck a building in the Iranian city of Qom 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 Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, linked the building to Iran’s Assembly of Experts and said Wednesday there was no meeting ongoing 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, and Giovanna Dell'Orto in Miami contributed to this report.
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