A United States official has confirmed America’s involvement in the operation against Iran in comments to Radio Liberty.
The U.S. official says the airstrikes are still ongoing and are aimed at “weakening Iran’s security infrastructure.”
Media reports say that according to the Iranian official, the country is preparing to retaliate and “the response will be crushing.”
The Israeli military struck Iranian territory and explosions went off in Tehran, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on the morning of 28 February.
According to the Israeli side, “the attack was sudden”. At the same time as it began, the IDF sent out a nationwide warning urging citizens to stay close to secure premises.
“This is a preventive message to prepare the population for the possibility of rockets being launched towards the State of Israel,” the military said in a statement.
According to Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, the country has launched a “preventive military operation” against Iran, which “aims to neutralise the potential threat from Tehran as well as to prevent possible strikes on Israeli territory”.
In 2015, a group of world powers reached a landmark nuclear agreement with Tehran to prevent Iran from building an Iranian bomb. Western economic sanctions were relaxed at the time, but Iran began reneging after Donald Trump, during his first term as US president, withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions.
On 13 February, the US president said regime change in Iran would be “the best thing that could happen”.
He also confirmed that a second aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, would soon join the “massive” US armada in the Arabian Sea.
17 Feb US and Iranian officials met in Geneva, Switzerland, for a second round of talks on an agreement aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear programme and preventing war.
The two sides held indirect talks in early February in Oman, the first since Israeli and U.S. strikes on key Iranian nuclear sites during the brief conflict in June.
The talks come amid a significant U.S. military buildup in the Middle East. Tensions have been rising since massive nationwide protests in Iran last month, during which authorities launched a brutal crackdown that human rights groups say has left thousands dead.