Iran’s state TV said several strong explosions were heard around the capital Tehran. Semi-official Iranian media said explosions were also heard in the nearby city of Karaj.
TV PHOTO
AMN /WEB DESK
The Israel military says it has launched strikes on military targets in Iran, as Iranian media reported several explosions were heard in Iran’s capital, Tehran, and the nearby city of Karaj early Saturday.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a post on X that it was conducting “precise strikes on military targets” in Iran, but did not elaborate.
“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since October 7th — on seven fronts — including direct attacks from Iranian soil. Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond,” the statement said.
It comes after Tehran launched almost 200 ballistic missiles towards Israel on 1 October, in what the country said was a retaliation for the killing of Hamas’s political leader on Iranian soil back in July.
Israel’s strikes took place just as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived back in the U.S. after his latest trip the Middle East.
A U.S. defense official told VOA “we were given a heads-up” on the strikes, “but we’re not involved.”
All of the additional U.S. forces that the Pentagon had ordered to the Middle East earlier this month had arrived in the region prior to the Israeli strikes on Iran, another U.S. defense official told VOA.
Iran’s state TV said several strong explosions were heard around the capital Tehran. Semi-official Iranian media said explosions were also heard in the nearby city of Karaj.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency cited a security source as saying on Saturday morning some of the sounds heard in the capital were caused by “defense activity in Tehran, and the air defense was successful during this incident.”
The news agency said there were no reports of incidents that required assistance and that the situation at Mehrabad International Airport and the Imam Khomeini International Airport was “normal.”
RNA said Iranian air defenses “successfully shot down adversarial targets in the airspace around Tehran province.”