President Donald Trump announced early Saturday Feb. 28 the U.S. military and Israel began joint “major combat operations” in Iran with the objective of “eliminating imminent threats” from the regime.
The following day the Pentagon reported Iran’s supreme leader had been killed.
“They [Iran] rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore,” Trump said in a video he posted to Truth Social. “Instead, they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas and could soon reach the American homeland.”
Trump continued, “Just imagine how emboldened this regime would be if they ever had and actually were armed with nuclear weapons as a means to deliver their message. For these reasons, the United States military has undertaken a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”
Operation Epic Fury, as it has been coined, involved B-2 stealth bombers striking Iran’s ballistic missile facilities, according to the U.S. Central Command on X Sunday. The strikes also killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump said in a different Truth Social post.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi posted on X over the weekend saying that a “deal was within reach. We left Geneva with understanding that we’d seal a deal next time we meet. Those who wanted to spoil diplomacy succeeded in their mission. But it was Mr. Trump, yet again, who ultimately ordered bombing of the negotiating table.”
In another post on X, Araghchi said, “Netanyahu and Trump’s war on Iran is wholly unprovoked, illegal, and illegitimate. Trump has turned ‘America First’ into ‘Israel First’—which always means ‘America Last’.”
Two days after initiating the strike campaign, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed reporters on the operation’s objectives, to include details on some of the weapons systems.
“The mission of Operation Epic Fury is laser-focused: Destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure and they will never have nuclear weapons. We’re hitting them surgically, overwhelmingly and unapologetically,” Hegseth said.
The operation’s launch followed weeks of U.S. military buildup in the region and talks between the Trump administration and the Iranian government Tehran’s nuclear program, with the president having alluded to the potential of military strikes if demands were not met.
“Iran’s stubborn and self-evident nuclear pursuits, their targeting of global shipping lanes and their swelling arsenal of ballistic missiles and killer drones were no longer — are no longer — tolerable risks. Iran was building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions,” Hegseth said.
The attack has resulted in the death of more than 550 Iranians, according to the Red Crescent organization, with Iranian authorities saying a strike that hit a school in Minab, Iran killed at least 165 people including children. As of Monday morning, the Pentagon had confirmed six U.S. deaths in the action.
As the Pentagon offered more details on Monday regarding the operation’s strategic objectives, Hegseth said the U.S. was not pursuing a “so-called regime-change war.”
“But the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it,” Hegseth said.