Satellite images and videos provide the first window into where U.S. and Israeli strikes have landed across Iran, revealing targets that include the Tehran compound of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state media reported explosions in cities across the country.
Iran has retaliated and struck at least one U.S. military installation in the region, a navy base in Bahrain where the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet is headquartered. Dozens of U.S. military cargo and refueling planes were recently repositioned to bases in the region. Videos show explosions in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. All three countries along with Qatar and Jordan also said they engaged air defenses to intercept Iranian missile fire.
President Donald Trump told The Washington Post early Saturday that his principal objective is “freedom” for the Iranian people as the U.S. launched military strikes in the country. The operations are expected to run at least through the weekend, a U.S. official said.
The total number of casualties in Iran was not immediately clear, but satellite imagery and videos show damage to civilian areas.
Plumes of smoke rose in central Tehran on Saturday near Khamenei’s compound, which houses various government buildings, videos verified by The Post show. Residents honk their car horns, as the smoke eclipses the sun in one video filmed from a busy intersection about a half mile from the compound. Two columns of gray smoke billow into the air.
Multiple buildings across the compound were severely damaged or destroyed, satellite imagery shows. The once green gardens are shrouded in dust and debris.
Towers of smoke were visible across the city, including in a video filmed near the sweeping structure of Saman Tower in the east of the city.
A crowd frantically gathers around a school for girls in the coastal city of Minab in the country’s south, visuals verified by The Post show, after it was struck. Debris carpets the ground, covered with pieces of shattered glass and crumbled wall. One side of the building appears to have nearly collapsed, as wisps of smoke rise out of what remains.
At least 63 students were killed and another 60 were injured, the semiofficial Mehr News Agency said, adding that 170 pupils were at the school at the time of the attack. There was no independent confirmation of the number dead.
“We are aware of reports concerning civilian harm resulting from ongoing military operations,” said Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command. “The protection of civilians is of utmost importance, and we will continue to take all precautions available to minimize the risk of unintended harm.”
Iranian officials have warned that Israel and U.S. military bases would be considered “legitimate targets” in the event of any attack. Iran’s supreme leader said Feb. 1 that U.S. strikes on Iran would lead to “regional war.”
Iran has targeted at least one U.S. base in the region, the U.S. naval base in Manama, Bahrain. In video from outside the base, a man films while driving toward a tower of dense black smoke that has enveloped the buildings just behind the gate. “This is truly unbelievable,” the video says in a caption.
Another video shows a moment of impact. “They got the NAVCENT building,” the narrator says, referring to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. Dark smoke pours out of the base in the immediate aftermath, two other videos show. Bahrain’s state news agency reported that the attacks struck a service center on the base.
An additional video filmed after the initial explosions shows an Iranian Shahed-style drone hovering above before plunging down, creating a large fireball that gave way to a dark gray smoke plume. It struck a spherical structure that appears to be a radome, a common structure on military bases used to protect equipment.
The Bahrain strike underscores the challenging mission of air defense, a costly and finite resource that the Pentagon must stretch across many sites worldwide. Iranian-made Shahed drones are much slower than missiles, giving analysts more time and opportunity to track and intercept them, though their relatively low altitude can make detection challenging.
No U.S. service members have been reported injured in Iran’s initial retaliatory strikes against military facilities in the region, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide details not yet announced publicly.
Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that Iranian missile attacks targeted the naval base in Bahrain, as well as other U.S. military bases including al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Ali al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait and al-Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates.
Iran appears to have also hit nonmilitary sites, including the Fairmont Palm, a luxury hotel in Dubai. Flames engulfed lower floors of the hotel, according to video published to social media Saturday. Towers of smoke dwarf the palm-tree-lined sky.
The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the attacks “in the strongest terms” in a statement, noting the nation considers “these acts a flagrant violation of national sovereignty and a clear breach of international law.”
Sammy Westfall, Tara Copp and Alex Horton contributed to this report.
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