U.S. & Israel Launch “Major Combat Operations” On Iran As Trump Calls On Iranians To “Take Over”

The U.S. and Israel have launched air strikes on Iran with President Donald Trump saying “major combat operations” are underway.

Blasts started being heard around the Iran’s capital city around 6.30 am local time on Saturday morning, with reports of people running in the streets in panic.

There were also reports of strikes on military sites in Kermanshah, Qum, Isfahan, Tabriz, Karaj and Kenarak. Iran state news agency reported 43 people had been killed in an Israeli strike on a girls school in Southern Iran, and another 63 wounded.

Iran armed forces immediately launched retaliatory missile and drone strikes towards Israel as well as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Trump announced the operations in an eight-minute video statement in the early hours of the U.S. East Coast morning, in which he said the aim was “to crush’ Iran’s military and “eliminate its nuclear program” as well as bring about a change in government.

“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” he said. “Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world.”

The U.S. president also called on the Iranian people, who have been subjected to a harsh crackdown against pro-democracy protests in recent weeks, to “take over.”

TV and radio networks worldwide scrambled to get on board the story, breaking into normal programming as a chaotic picture of the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and retaliatory blasts across the Gulf started to take shape.

In a note, NBC News said its NOW program broke in with breaking news on Iran at 1: 44 am ET, followed by a network report at 1: 50 am ET, and has been producing rolling coverage ever since on network and NOW.