Iran's missiles rain down on Israel

 

Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel in a counter-strike on Friday after an unprecedented onslaught hammered the country's top military brass and targeted its nuclear facilities and bases, killing top generals and nuclear scientists.

Iranian officials confirmed the death of 78 people, including top military generals and senior scientists and injuries to more than 320 others in strikes which began early in the morning, and continued throughout the day. Media reports said 34 people were wounded in Israel in the Iranian missiles salvo.

Air raids sirens and explosions rang out across Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the airways to issue a word of caution, saying he expected "several waves of Iranian attacks" in response to his country's strikes.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it attacked dozens of targets in Israel. The salvo came hours after Israel said its wide-spread air raids had hit about 200 targets, including nuclear facilities and killed several top-ranking Iranian generals.

"Iran comes under attack," said Iran's state-run IRNA news agency. "Various locations in Iran, including in the capital, Tehran, have come under attack by the Israeli regime, and a number of top military commanders have been assassinated in targeted strikes," it said, terming the strikes a major escalation.

Iranians woke up to the sounds of large explosions in and near Tehran. In the first round of strikes, IRNA said the Israeli regime targeted residential buildings in Tehran in the wee hours of the day as people were asleep in their homes.

Images quickly emerged of the capital's skyline, showing plumes of smoke rising from several locations. At least one image showed the lifeless body of a child under the rubble in a Tehran neighbourhood in the immediate aftermath of the strikes.

IRNA said Major General Mohammad Baqeri, chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of Iran's Armed Forces and Major General Hossein Salami, chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) were assassinated in targeted strikes against Iran's top military brass in Tehran.

It further said that Commander of the Aerospace Force of the IRGC Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh and Commander of Khatam al-Anbia Headquarters Major General Gholamali Rashid were also among the dead. All of them were veterans of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War.

Unconfirmed reports said Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and a former secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, had also been severely wounded in a targeted strike.

A number of top nuclear scientists were also targeted. Mohammad-Mehdi Tehranchi, president of the Islamic Azad University, and Fereydoun Abbasi, former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, were among the dead. Tehranchi and Abbasi were reportedly targeted at their homes in the capital.