US will ‘rain missiles’, ‘death and destruction’ on Iran, Trump aides say
Al Jazeera
US president says on a scale of one to 10, he would rate the war’s success at 15, as Iran details civilian sites hit.
Officials in the United States are claiming success in their campaign against Iran, stressing that Washington is in the process of crushing the government in Tehran “without mercy”.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said the US military is loosening the rules of engagement and operating with little restraint as casualties, including hundreds of civilian deaths, mount in Iran.
“Iranian leaders [are] looking up and seeing only US and Israeli air power every minute of every day, until we decide it’s over, and Iran will be able to do nothing about it,” Hegseth said.
He added that US jets over Iran are “controlling the skies, picking targets” and bringing “death and destruction from the sky, all day long”.
“This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight,” Hegseth said. “We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”
Hezbollah says its attack is in response to the killing of Iran’s Khamenei and ‘in defence of Lebanon and its people’.
President Masoud Pezeshkian condemns killing of Iran’s supreme leader as ‘a great crime’, according to his office.
Iran confirms targeting US bases across the Middle East.