American warplanes and naval assets struck several cities across southern Iran in a sweeping bombardment on Saturday, with US Central Command confirming what it described as a "heavy wave of strikes." The attack represents the most direct and large-scale US military action against Iranian territory in the history of the two countries' long and fractious rivalry. The targets, according to early reporting from Al Jazeera correspondents on the ground and regional officials, were spread across the south of the country — a region that is home to critical military installations, energy infrastructure and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps bases that Washington has long accused of directing proxy forces across the Middle East. No comprehensive casualty figures had been released at the time of writing, and Iranian state media had acknowledged only "limited damage," a claim that outside analysts received with considerable scepticism.

The Biden-era diplomatic framework that had attempted, fitfully, to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement appears to have collapsed entirely in the wake of the strikes. Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, issued urgent calls for restraint, while Russia and China summoned US ambassadors to demand an immediate halt to what Moscow called "an act of naked aggression." The United Nations Security Council announced an emergency session, though the US veto power makes any binding resolution effectively impossible. In Tehran, thousands of civilians were reported to have gathered near government buildings in a show of solidarity, even as air-raid alerts continued to sound across the capital.