Dated: 2025-06-13. Added: 2025-06-13.
Explosions rocked Tehran early Friday morning, as Israel carried out a major attack on Iran intended to cripple the country’s nuclear program, Israeli officials said. The strikes raised fears the long-simmering conflict between the two countries could escalate into a war involving the most powerful militaries in the Middle East.
Residents of Tehran, the Iranian capital, reported hearing huge explosions, and Iranian state television broadcast images of smoke and fire billowing from buildings. One Iranian senior official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Iran’s fighter jets had taken off to intercept the Israeli warplanes.
Several Israeli officials described the attacks as a pre-emptive strike intended to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb. The Israeli military said the strikes had targeted sites critical to Iran’s long-range missile capabilities and its nuclear program.
Israel attacked at least six military bases around Tehran, including Parchin, and residential homes at two highly secure complexes for military commanders and multiple residential buildings around Tehran, in what appears to be targeted assassinations, according to four senior Iranian officials.
The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a video statement that Israel had attacked Iran’s main nuclear “enrichment facility in Natanz,” as well as “Iran’s leading nuclear scientists.” He called Iran’s nuclear program, “a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival.” Israel is believed to be the only nuclear armed nation in the Middle East.