Iran retaliates after U.S.-Israeli attack on Tehran, targeting sites across Middle East
· Toronto Sun
Explosions rocked Iran, Israel and several other Middle Eastern countries on Sunday, a day after a joint U.S.-Israeli attack killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior officials.
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Tehran retaliated to the death of its hardline supreme leader by launching waves of missiles and drones at Israel and several U.S. bases in the Middle East.
The deadliest attack from Iran’s barrage was a missile strike that hit the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, just west of Jerusalem, killing eight people and injuring more than 20 others, according to a Reuters report.
Israeli officials said that though many of the missiles were intercepted, the building in Beit Shemesh, where people were sheltering from the air raids, was hit.
In a post on X , the Israel Defence Forces accused Iran of directly firing missiles toward the town, “killing innocent civilians.”
Israeli authorities said the repeated barrages from Tehran have claimed at least 10 people and injured more than 120 others.
U.S. bases in Middle East targeted
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it launched several attacks on U.S bases in the Middle East on Sunday, targeting those in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Iranian state media reported that the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was targeted with four ballistic missiles.
The warship is one of two U.S. aircraft carriers deployed to the region in recent weeks and the only one relatively close to Iranian shores.
“The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn’t even come close,” U.S. Central Command said in a post on X .
Iranian strikes killed one person in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and one person was killed in Kuwait. Dozens more people have been injured in strikes across the region.
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Three U.S. troops killed in joint operation
Meanwhile, the U.S. military said Sunday that three of its service members had been killed and five others were “seriously wounded” in the military operation against Iran, which it has dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.”
“Several others sustained minor shrapnel injuries and concussions — and are in the process of being returned to duty,” Central Command said in a statement on X.
In Tehran, streets were largely deserted as people sheltered during heavy airstrikes, witnesses told The Associated Press.
Blasts in Tehran sent a huge plume of smoke into the sky in an area of government buildings. Iranian authorities said more than 200 people had been killed since the start of the U.S. and Israeli strikes.
Earlier on Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a message broadcast on state TV that a new leadership council had begun its work and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said a new supreme leader would be chosen in “one or two days.”
Thousands of flights cancelled in Middle East
Flights across the Middle East have been disrupted as countries in the region closed their airspace.
As of Sunday morning, more than 2,400 flights were cancelled across the region, according to flight tracker FlightAware.
Air Canada was among the major airlines cancelling flights to or from Tel Aviv and Dubai.
— With files from the Associated Press.