The United States military reportedly deployed Tomahawk missiles and new “one-way” attack drones during its opening strikes against the Islamist regime in Iran on Saturday.
Iran’s air defence systems were reportedly “effectively suppressed” by a “multi geographic command and control” strategy that was designed to “overwhelm Iran’s defenses,” U.S. officials said, according to Chief National Security Correspondent for Fox News Jennifer Griffin.
Griffin reported that in the strikes launched by President Donald Trump, the U.S. military used new capabilities, including “one-way attack drones” for the first time in combat alongside Tomahawk missiles during the initial wave of strikes.
She said that the strikes focused on “high value targets” such as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) facilities, Naval sites, and “underground facilities” likely linked to the nation’s nuclear programme.
“There were hundreds of targets in what is being described to me as a multi-day operation,” Griffin reported, adding that U.S. officials claimed that the Iranian response has so far been “ineffective” and that the strikes have “effectively suppressed their air defenses.”
According to the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS), the combined strikes conducted by the United States and Israel have so far hit over 20 provinces within the country, London’s Daily Telegraph reported.
Meanwhile, Iranian government spokeswoman, Fatemeh Mohajerani, said per state media that Tehran’s Ministry of Petroleum has arranged for “mobile gas stations” along transportation routes out of the capital city for people seeking to evacuate.
It remains unclear which, if any, senior officials in the Iranian regime were successfully killed during the opening series of strikes by the United States and Israel.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is reported by the Times of Israel as saying that Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, remains alive “as far as I know.”
Although the U.S. was reportedly able to suppress Iran’s internal air defences, it was apparently unable to prevent the Islamist regime from retaliating across the region, with Iranian state media claiming that 14 U.S. bases were hit with missile and drone strikes. The full accounting of strikes has yet to be confirmed by the United States, and Iranian media has yet to confirm which sites the regime supposedly successfully hit.
Multiple Gulf Arab states have claimed to have suffered attacks from Iran on Sunday, including Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
In a statement on social media, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said that its forces “successfully intercepted” a series of attempted Iranian attacks on the capital Riyadh region and in its Eastern Province.
“These attacks cannot be justified under any pretext or in any way whatsoever, and they came despite the Iranian authorities’ knowledge that the Kingdom had affirmed it would not allow its airspace or territory to be used to target Iran,” the Saudi ministry said.
Riyadh further warned that in response to the acts of “unjustified aggression”, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia “will take all necessary measures to defend its security and safeguard its territory, its citizens, and its residents, including the option of responding to the aggression.”
National Security reporter for the Washington Post, John Hudson, said that in a “brief phone call” with the paper’s Natalie Allison, U.S. President Trump said at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning that his primary concern “freedom for the people” of Iran.